


A Different Kind of Wonderful

by random_flores



Category: Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:51:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/random_flores/pseuds/random_flores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was a love triangle when this all started. Kinda fitting it ended with the three of us." - the road to happily ever after never did go straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Keith and Peter.

  


Watts never believed in happy endings. She wanted to - wanted to be stupidly optimistic, naïve; a fool and in love. But she wasn't. She didn't believe in happy endings, and when she ended up with Keith, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't believe it was her he really wanted. 

Thing was - Watts had spent most of her life thinking she wasn't good enough, and even when Keith told her she was just enough, she was never sure how to believe him. Watts always knew he wanted something else, that somehow she wasn't enough for her dreamy little artist. There was no way she could be, with her dirty fingers and strange way of slouching, rough hands and even rougher talk. 

Of course, Keith always did have a way of surprising her. She knew she wasn't what he really wanted; she just figured he wanted someone like Amanda Jones. 

It totally blindsided her when they both realized it wasn't girls he really wanted at all. 

Watts had been called dyke long enough to know that there were certain stereotypes, and she hated to be predictable. It had always given her a bit of smug satisfaction that just by being with Keith, she was turning heads and shutting people the fuck up. 

The last thing she ever wanted was to prove the assholes in high school right, give them another reason to turn up their noses and stare at her like she was shit. 

When Keith went to art school, she waited for him. Worked in the garage, played her drums, remarkably content, considering she never saw him, just got phone calls and a weekend visit. 

This was what a relationship was, and when it was time for his first art show, he wanted her to be there. It was because she didn't want to look like an asshole in front of his art school friends that she finally started putting on some decent pants, no holes, got a t-shirt that was a little tighter, let her hair grow just a little more shaggy and tried with the lipstick. Nothing big. Nothing major, but Watts hated to be predictable, and it gave her a thrill, to see the look in Keith's eyes when she made it there, looking decent. 

The signs were there, that weekend. Not even Keith knew, but he should have. They both should have. She met Peter, Keith's new friend, who wore black fingernail polish and pronounced her 'too pretty to be straight'. The asshole was more feminine than she could ever hope to be - slimmer hips and blonde hair. 

Fuck - he was even prettier than she was. 

She hated him until she saw him touch a guitar, that night after the art opening, Keith blowing out the smoke from his joint, laughing at them both while she beat her drumsticks against a haphazardly stacked pile of art books, Peter swaggering like Mick Jagger, beating out a kick ass riff. 

It was the jam session to end all jam sessions, and when it ended, they had all had fallen asleep in one big dog pile, Watts’ head on Keith's chest and arm draped across Peter's waist. 

Art school was fucking crazy, and Keith was crazy in it - and Watts loved it. She loved Peter and his guitar and his smile, loved Keith and his laugh, free and happy for the first fucking time since he got out of his house. He had friends, tons of them, and no one laughed at her or looked at her weird because of her leather gloves or her shaggy hair. 

No one called her a dyke, but Peter was the first to call her a lesbian. 

Keith had fallen asleep, head in her lap, snoring away in a half drunk, half high stupor, and she and Peter were the only ones left at four in the morning, sitting in an acrid, smoke filled attic dorm room, sprawled across the cracked wooden floor. 

They had been quiet for about five minutes; just smoking and sipping at beers and looking at each other, before she noticed his eyes on her, then on Keith, then back on her, smirk suddenly on his lips. 

"What?" 

"He's pretty enough to be a girl," he said, and she quirked an eyebrow, pleasantly buzzed, but not quite drunk, because, let's face it, someone had to look after Keith. Still, it was enough to dull her senses, and she only stared blankly, amused by the comment. 

"Yeah." He just kept on staring, and it made her suddenly uncomfortable. Looking away, she ran her fingertips through Keith's bangs. "So?" 

"So you sure he's what you want?" 

She blinked, startled into suspicion, as Peter leaned forward, offered her his joint. She took it, sucked in a swallow of the stuff, suppressing a cough as she handed it back, suddenly dizzy. "What the fuck does that mean?" 

"Nothing." Peter's head fell back against the bed, and he stared up, like he was looking at the sky through the grey ceiling. "Just that you've been here two days, and you two haven't fucked once." 

"What?" 

"If I was as in love as you two pretend to be, my ass would have been sore by now." 

It was an interesting visual, and not one Watts was really pleased to see suddenly flashed into her head, given in glaring Technicolor thanks to the drug. 

Still, she found herself utterly incapable of being really pissed off, because she was getting really close to becoming really fucking stoned, and every time she could feel the emotion start, it somehow just settled back neatly into its place. 

Still, she took another puff, closed her eyes, and handed it back. "If I were sober I'd have already kicked your ass," she muttered. 

"I haven't been sober in a week," he said, glassy-eyed and grinning. "It's a fallacy of being an artist, sweetie. Breathe reality, live in a dream world, and never, ever look back. In art," he added, twiddling his cigarette at her, "We are truly free." 

"You are truly stoned," she snorted, and suddenly they were both laughing, short giggles that made it hard to breathe, because Keith was asleep, and she didn't want to wake him. She ended up wheezing, coughing, shoulders shaking in mirth. 

"I'm free," he insisted, "And you know why?" 

"No, tell me." 

"Because I can be who I am." The smile was suddenly gone, and with it, Watts found the haze suddenly clench around her, like a fog of chains. It was weird, to look at Peter, and suddenly see nothing but him. "Why don't you drop your chains, baby?" he continued softly, flicking his gaze from her to Keith. "Set you both free?" 

"What do you mean?" she asked roughly. 

He smiled, that stupid knowing grin that made her hate him the first time they met, and made her almost hate him now. "Nothing wrong with wanting to be with girls, Watts. They're really beautiful. Aesthetically speaking." Her eyes narrowed, heart slowed into one, frantic beat, when her mouth went dry, and not even licking her lips helped, then. "I'd wanna do them but I'm too fucking pretty for them, myself. I gotta stick to guys, even it out. Ya know?" 

He didn't look like he had just judged the fuck out of her. He could have cared less. Peter was content to merely dissect her with his stupid fag joint, smoke gliding out on his lips in tufts. 

The smoke threatened to mesmerize, and she was too scared now to be mad, but she was getting there. Suddenly weighed down with Keith, she felt imprisoned, and she held on tighter as her eyes glittered at Peter. "I'm not a dyke." 

"I didn't say dyke," he answered easily. "But I will say lesbian." 

She couldn't move, but if she wasn't pinned under Keith, she would have kicked the shit out of him. Watts always hated to be predictable, and no one had fucking called her a dyke here because she was with Keith. She loved Keith more than she had loved anyone, and Peter was a fucking fucker. 

"Fuck you." 

But Peter wasn't fazed. He chuckled and gave her a dark, amused glance. "No, thank you." 

"I'm not a dyke," she said again, and Peter's smile faded. 

There was a long, pregnant pause, before his smirk came back, and he answered simply, sincerely, "Okay. Here," Peter added, groaning slightly at the effort it took just to move. "Smoke pot. Relax. Kick my ass in the morning."

\-- 

"You should come out here." 

Leaning against her car, Watts inspected her fingernails, grimaced at the dirt she found underneath, and considered just sticking the digit in her mouth to get rid of it. But Keith was looking at her with that 'Watts, please' look on his face, and she finally just sighed, shoving her hand into her pocket. 

"I already am out here," she said, pushing off the car to lean over the hood with him. Keith had elbows full of black grease, and he gave the motor belt a clean tug. 

"I mean to live," he said, before he blinked and wiped away the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his shirt. "Get in the car and start the ignition, will you?" 

She gave him an odd look, confused for a minute, before she rolled her eyes and moved around him, pulling open the door and slumping into the seat. "Why the hell should I?" 

"Start it." 

She did, hearing the rasping sound of her car dying a horrible death before she gave up and let the starter go. Keith just glared and ducked out of sight again. 

"One," he began after a moment. "I miss you. Two - there's nothing fucking out there for you, Watts." 

"What and out here there's a teeming mass of opportunity?" Watts leaned back against the seat, watching Keith's hands work through the window between the open hood and the motor. "Do you need some help?" 

"Just start it again." 

She did, heard a familiar screech, but this time, it was like the little clunker was actually trying, before it gave up and her hands broke away again. "You're close." He grunted and kept going. "Besides, you're only out here for two more years, man. I see you nearly every weekend - what the fuck would I do out here, when you're coming back?" And then it made sense, the way his hands stopped and he ducked further into the hood. "Keith?" She pushed off the seat, coming around the hood, and saw him working feverishly, eyes swiveling up to her. 

"I'm not going back." 

"WHAT?" 

"I like it here, Watts." He sniffed, finally standing up and slamming the car hood down, ignoring her wide eyes and open mouth. "Start it up again." 

"Keith." 

"Just do it." 

Keith was Keith. Moody and beautiful and a tortured artist, and Watts knew that their town was never enough for him. She knew SHE wasn't enough for him, and she swallowed hard and just did what he asked her too, tacitly ignoring the urge to kick his ass.

She had been fucking WAITING for him. 

Flipping the switch, the car sputtered just once, before it roared. Inside her running car, she stared at the dashboard for a minute, before Keith leaned over, duck his head inside, and placed a gentle kiss on her mouth. 

"Come out here," he whispered. "You loved it here." 

"I was here for two days," she muttered. 

"Think about it." 

And he slapped the car hood and tossed her duffle bag in the back seat, stepping away, looking rugged and handsome in his faded blue jeans and white t-shirt. 

He looked happy here, and Watts could only glare at him, before her smile softened and she shook her head, studying him with a half smile. 

"You're an idiot, Keith." 

"You're beautiful, Watts." 

She grinned, shifted the gear into drive. "I'll see ya." 

She heard the ding of a hand slapping metal, and she pushed her heel down on the accelerator, and went back home.

\-- 

Watts always knew she wasn't enough for Keith, she knew that before they got together, she knew it when he told her he wanted to stay away. 

True, he wanted her with him, but all the really meant was that she wasn't enough.

And she knew that she wasn't being fair, but Watts had never really been dealt a fair life herself, so she wasn't exactly going to shit bricks about it. Truth was, she loved Keith, and she had spent her whole fucking life never being enough for him. 

She could do it again. 

\--

Lonnie needed someone at the garage, and Watts was no Keith, but she was there, saving money now, because she promised Keith that she would make it out there, and now she had a reason. 

It was a shit job with shit pay, but Watts had nothing better to do, other than play her drums and wait for Keith, so she took it, dressed in grease and fending off the barbs and cat calls from assholes and jerks. 

She was used to dealing with the shit-faced freaks from high school, who loved to come and fuck with her, and when a Buick pulled into full service blasting fucking Tiffani, she just rolled her eyes and moved off the stool, trotting from the shade of the garage out to the fueling tanks. 

When she got a good look at the uncertain figure waiting against it, she nearly tripped on her boots. 

"Amanda Jones." 

Amanda Jones wore a hesitant smile, perfect hair curling over her perfect shoulders, palms smoothing down her hips, like she was trying hard to get ready for something. 

"Watts." 

Stuck between the safety of the garage and the look of the one woman who never ceased to stop scaring the shit out of her, Watts could only stare stupidly, before Amanda gave another smile, coming forward like she was nervous. 

"It's good to see you." 

Polite and a total lie. Watts had to smile, running a greasy hand through her hair and managing a grin of her own. "Right. What are you doing here? I thought you had gone to college." 

"Well... I - I did." Amanda nodded, flashing another perfect smile. "I'm just home for the summer... Working over at the bank - I just..." 

"Really." 

Amanda stopped short, seemingly surprised by the comment. "What do you mean by that?" 

"Nothing I just..." Watts shrugged, blowing out her breath. "Figured you'd be in Europe or... Mexico or something." 

"My parents aren't exactly made of money," Amanda said, and there was a little bit of steel in her voice, that glare in her eyes that Watts had seen many times before. 

And in that was the real Amanda. 

Watts grinned. "Okay. Need a fill?" 

"Actually, I was hoping you could just show me how to do it," she said stiffly. 

Pausing, Watt held the hose mid-air. Raising an eyebrow quizzically, she studied Amanda's perfect manicure. "You wanna learn how to fill your tank." 

"It doesn't look that hard." 

She had to admit, Amanda was beautiful when she was determined. Chuckling, Watts lifted the handle. "It’s not. You see this? You just stick it in the hole." 

Amanda looked annoyed. "I figured that much." 

"Doesn't take a rocket scientist." Selecting the grade and pulling the trigger, she watched the numbers. "How much?" 

"Five dollars is fine." 

And that was right about when they completely ran out of things to say to each other. 

Watts never knew what to do with awkward silences, so she kept her eye on the meter and tightened her grip on the handle, clucking her tongue with the shift of the numbers.

"So... um... how's Keith?" 

There was a small jolt, jealousy, Watts would admit, before she fingered her diamond earrings and looked at Amanda Jones. "He's good. He's in art school. Gonna see him in a week."

She looked hard at Amanda Jones, tried to find anything that would trigger how Amanda was taking this, because she may have won Keith from Amanda Jones, but she was sure as fuck wasn't ready to play that nice. 

But Amanda only smiled that passive smile that scared the shit out of her. 

"Great," she said hollowly, and then as if she'd caught herself, she jerked her body, and nodded faster, "That's really good for him." 

Thankfully, the meter hit five, and Watts pulled the hose of the fuel tank, docking it, and wiping the oil on her jeans. "Okay..." 

She watched through hooded eyes as Amanda counted out her change, and when she handed her the wrinkled bills, she took them.

"So it was good to see you again." 

"Yeah." Nodding like an idiot, Watts closed the door for her, pulling away as Amanda shot her another patented beautiful girl smile. "See you around." 

"Bye!" Amanda Jones just waved, and pulled away from the station. 

Watts watched her go, and shook her head, heading back to the garage. 

\-- 

Keith hadn't had a haircut, and he was shaggy-haired and burned from the sun, looking like a displaced hippy. He had been quiet, but Watts was really just so excited about her Amanda Jones story, she didn’t really notice. 

"You'll never guess who I ran into," she started, the minute they sat down.

"I'm gay." 

He said it rushed, fast, and for a full thirty seconds, it didn't process that he did. For the second time in a week, Watts was left staring like an idiot, with her too wide eyes and her jaw dropped open. 

She had no idea what the hell to say to that, but then again, she didn't get much of a chance, because the next thing she knew, he was on his knees, between her legs, clasping onto her hands and holding on so tightly it hurt. 

"Please don't be mad," he whispered. "God, Watts, I love you so much, and I need you so much, and it just happened, but it's who I am, and I can't tell anyone but you. Please. Please don't hate me, because I need you right now. I need you with me, Watts. I need you to be with me and help me." 

And her mind was swimming, because Keith was saying he was fucking gay, and if that was true then he had fucked some guy, and Watts was suddenly assaulted with images, and she found herself squeaking, something she never thought she'd actually do. 

"Peter?" 

His eyes darkened, and Watt's heart constricted, but he wouldn't let go. "You're the only one that knows, Watts. You're the only one that I can tell. Please tell me that you don't hate me for this-" 

"Keith..." she blinked, trying to clear her head from the barrage of thoughts. Dimly, she was aware that she was getting dumped, but for some reason, that just didn't really register. Not when Keith looked ready to cry, not when he looked so damned miserable, and all Watts was really good for loving Keith anyway. "I love you Keith, I'm not gonna stop." 

He froze, stared hungrily into her eyes like he wasn't sure, and suddenly there was a desperate chortle from his throat before she was swallowed up in a fierce kiss, and then a rib-breaking hug. 

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Watts." 

She closed her eyes, and sucked in his scent, all male and art-y. "Fuck a lot of guys, probably," she whispered, and he made a sound that was either a laugh or a whimper, but never let her go. 

\--

She went from being Keith's girlfriend to being Keith's fag hag, and Watts was almost surprised when it didn't seem to make much of a difference. 

Everyone in town still thought Keith was her guy, and Keith's dad still smiled and looked at her like she was gonna be a part of the family, and nothing changed where she was. 

But at art school, she was the one who sat on the other side of the bed while Peter rubbed fingers in Keith's hair, and it was weird and different, but she always knew she was never good enough for Keith, and Peter was. He was beautiful and smart and a stoner, but an artist. Just like Keith. 

"When are you coming down?" he whispered, flicking off the ashes of his joint, words blurred and heady. 

"Hmm?" 

"Keith said you were gonna move down here," Peter enunciated, tapping at sleeping Keith for reassurance. "Here, suck on that." 

She took the joint, wrinkled her nose at the acrid smell. "Not really much of a point now." 

Peter snorted. "Please. Because you're not fucking him? Darling, you weren't fucking him them, and you're not fucking him now - the only difference between then and now is that now you both know what you are." 

"What the fuck am I?" 

Peter sucked in his smoke, gave her a long look, and said with his little-boy grin. "Babe, you're his beard." 

She couldn't stop her laughter, managed a 'Fuck you' in between, throwing a pillow for good measure.

"He needs you, you know," Peter said. "And he's scared shitless that you'll figure it out." 

"That he needs me?" She rolled her eyes. "Keith's a needy bastard, but he doesn't need me." 

"Oh Baby, he does. He's a whiny baby without you, but that's not what's got him scared." 

Peter had been with Keith a month, and he knew shit about Keith compared to her, but Watts was mellow enough to humor him, managing a smile as she brought the joint down, quirking an eyebrow. "What's got him scared then?" 

"That one day you'll realize you don't need him." She blinked at that, the words gone hazy in the smoke, and she didn't have time to process it before Peter began again, chipper and gallant, "Come down here. You can crash here. I love you. He loves you. We love you." 

"Thanks, but I'm saving up," she said gruffly. "Don't want to be stuck in an attic with my best friend and his gay boyfriend." 

"So you're coming." 

She took in a breath, glanced around the attic, heard the dim sounds of the party going on around them, Peter's smile and Keith's snoring form. "Thinkin' about it."

“Well, good." He smiled. "Think about it before August - because I can get you an audition." 

"What?" 

"Shh." He closed his eyes. "You're coming to school here because you belong here, just keep drumming." 

He fell asleep before she could ask what the hell he meant. 

\--


	2. Amanda & Watts.

  


Amanda Jones had pictured a perfect life for herself, because college, really, was the goal - not just for a career, but for the opportunity. 

At first her future was with Hardy, but unfortunately for Amanda Jones, Hardy was pretty much out of the picture for being a bonafide asshole. 

As it was, through what was simultaneously a nightmare, and quite possibly the most selfless thing she had ever done, Amanda Jones had no one.

And college was good. It was everything she thought it would be, with the beautiful rich guys and the amazing social life - but no one gave her a scholarship to join Alpha Phi, and while she had received five pledges to join Rush Week, no one was going to pay for her to actually be there. 

Amanda Jones had a plan. Since the train wreck that was Hardy and the one night where she thought she could be with Keith, she decided that she didn't need anyone. Amanda Jones was perfectly willing to stand on her own two feet, because she was anything but pathetic. 

Of course, being alone and proud and right, also meant being poor and Amanda Jones had always hated poverty. Now it was summer, and she would die before she talked to her high school 'friends', however loosely she meant that. Every one of her prospective sisters at Stanford were in Europe or Mexico or Tahiti. 

If Amanda wanted to remain an Alpha Phi ('till the day we die!), it meant paying the dues. 

Still, working for the summer wasn't horrible. The bank was dull, but she wasn’t getting dirty, and the rich businessmen would come, smile and offer to take her to lunch. 

Those were the good days. Otherwise, she sat there and glanced at a long line that never seemed to get shorter, while people that looked a little grimy, and sorta beaten down would push slips and money at her, with dull, dazed eyes - like robots in an old movie. 

She noticed people with color, people with life, and after about a month, she found herself desperate for them, searching out the crowd until she found the ones she hoped would be lucky enough to land in her line. 

She noticed Watts after she had been at the bank a month, two weeks after the awkward reunion at the gas station, where she had been looking for Keith and found his tomboy girlfriend instead. It had been a particularly dull day, and Amanda Jones would admit that she had particularly desperate for an escape from the boring tedium. 

She was even desperate enough to hope Watts would make it to her window because Watts, with her shaggy blonde hair and horrible fashion sense, was never boring. 

She came closer, closer, and then, with a curious skip of her heart, Amanda pressed the button, eyes on the tomboy as she swiveled out of her place, walking to her counter. 

It was almost funny, to see the way Watts, looking bored and defiant, suddenly dropped her mouth open, just for a second, before she snapped it shut and looked behind her, like she could somehow drop back before Amanda could see her. 

It was too late, Amanda HAD seen her, and when she smiled, Watts took a visible breath in, that haughty look on her pretty face (Amanda wasn't petty. Shallow, but never petty. She had no problem with saying a girl was pretty. Even if she had been the woman who stole the best guy she had for one night.). It reminded her oddly of a dog she had seen on that nature show she had flipped past the night before (Yes. She had been THAT bored.), scared, and frightened, and willing to bite your head off if you startled it. 

And so she smiled and waited with infinite patience for Watts to tromp her way to her counter, slamming down a check and eyeing her with a hooded glare. 

"Hi." 

"Hey," Watts answered back, shuffling oddly and leaning against the counter. "Forgot you worked here." 

Amanda smiled, plucking the check from the faux wooden finish and inspecting the amount. "Checking?" 

"Yeah." 

There was a moment of looking, before Amanda once again fought her smile and hesitantly said, "I need your deposit slip..." 

Only then, did Watts realize she was clutching onto the slip of paper like it was a lifeline. "Oh! Right..." Shoving it forward, it fluttered into Amanda's palms. "I just... you know..." 

"No problem." Forcing a quick smile onto her lips, she took the slip, carefully and rapidly typing in numbers. "How's your summer been?" 

Watts tapped against the wood, leather fringes of those horrible gloves creating a clatter of dull raps, like some little percussion system. 

"Uh... the same." 

"Keith still in LA?" 

Watt's eyes flickered a bit, but she stiffened, and answered, "Yeah." 

"Okay..." She blinked a bit, taking in Watt's savings account. Interesting. "Well... do you want any cash back?" 

"No, I'm okay. Just a deposit," she said quickly, and Amanda recognized that voice. Slightly desperate, wanting so badly to just get away from the awkward situation.

It was weird, really, just how much Amanda wanted to smile, looking over at the obviously uncomfortable tomboy in her leather jacket and longer, shaggier blonde strands hanging in her face. 

Later, she would rationalize this as a testament to just how BORED she really was, how desperate she was for actual companionship, so desperate that she was willing to take ANYONE interesting. 

She took a breath, and took the receipt from the printer, ripping it off with a jerk and suddenly scrawling on it with a pen.

"Look... I know Keith's out of town, and I'm not really doing anything, so..." Watt's blinked, eyes flitting down to the numbers being written on the slip. "If you want to hang out this weekend?" 

She stared at the paper like it was toxic. "You want to hang out. With me." 

And she grinned again, suddenly frank and honest. "I'm THAT bored. And if you can't think of anything better to do? Call me." 

She pushed the slip into Watts' fingers, and motioned with her hand for the next customer, smiling goodbye to the stunned tomboy who stepped back with her receipt, staring at her as if she were seeing an alien. 

It was the most interesting thing about her day. 

\-- 

It was shocking, actually, when the phone rang two days later and Watts was on the other line. 

"It's me," she said, in that husky, almost nervous, almost angry tone. Amanda had to take a moment to swallow, consider the situation. 

"Hi," she finally opted for, palm resting against the bureau that carried the house cradle. 

"You ever been to Skag's?" 

"Skag's?" she repeated, and she had to admit, the words coming from her mouth sounded like a foreign language. 

"Yeah, Skag's," Watt's said crisply. "It's on fortieth and Market - the place with the music coming out of it?" 

"-I know it," she retorted, even and almost haughty, a small prickle of irritation floating down her spine. 

"Then meet me there tonight. Eight o'clock?"

"Seriously?" That slipped out before she could almost stop herself, and she felt heat burn on her cheeks, Watt's triumphant expression almost vivid before her eyes. But she couldn't help it. She didn't GO to Skag's, because Skag's was for... well... people with hygiene issues. 

"Unless you're not up to it." 

It was a challenge, and Amanda Jones knew she was being goaded. 

"Fine," she snapped, and before she could take it back, Watts had said her good-bye and she was left with a dial tone. 

\-- 

For quite possibly the first time in her life, Amanda Jones had really no idea what to wear. What WOULD a preppy Alpha Phi from USC wear to SKAG's of all places, a bar reeking of smoke and liquor and guys with greasy long hair? 

Pride was really the one thing that kept her from driving down to Watts' Garage and putting an end to this, because while she had lost Keith to Watts (or given him up in a sacrifice that surely granted her full access rights to heaven), she still was, after all, Amanda Jones. There were just some things Amanda Jones just did not DO. 

But the alternative was sitting at home between her mother and father listening to her father complain about the taxes, her mother about the soap operas, and Bob Saget making his really bad jokes. 

She chose denim jeans with some nice boots, and what passed for a nice leather jacket, with a chic cut that went well with her hair. As she left, she distractedly promised her mother she would say hi to Hardy for her. 

Against her better judgment and any survival instinct she had left, Amanda Jones ended up standing in the middle of Skags, which was dark and smelly and loud. She didn't belong there, and she knew it, and so did everyone else, because she swore even the band stopped and stared at her. 

And sure enough, something big and ugly and not nearly as nice as Duncan turned out to be slithered up at her. 

"Hey, baby. Can I buy you a beer?" 

She literally heaved, and she found herself not bothering to control her sneer as she pushed at his broad chest with her palm. "No, thank you." 

"Just one beer." 

"I'm waiting for someone," she said. 

"Yeah, me." 

"Oh, buzz off!" she snapped. And it couldn't have been the smartest thing Amanda ever did, but she did have a temper. It came with having red hair. 

"What, bitch? Think you're too good for me?" 

She blinked, mouth dropping open, cheeks flaming red, but before she could respond, a blur of blonde and black suddenly blocked in front of her, shoving hard at the chest of the ugly guy. 

"Fuck off, Jared." Watts looked severely peeved, keeping between her and the guy. "Why do you always have to be such a fucking prick?" She rolled her eyes, attention on Amanda. "You came." 

"What, you got a girlfriend now, Watts?" They both glared, Watts grabbing her hand and pulling her away from the idiot in leather. 

"Fuck off!" Watts snapped behind them, and Amanda cringed when she heard him holler out, "I always knew you were a dyke!" 

"Idiot fuckwhits," Watts murmured, sinking into a wooden chair at a teeny tiny shaky wooden table, motioning with her palm for Amanda to take the other one. "You want a beer?" 

"Uh... what?" She was almost afraid to touch anything, and as result, sat straight up in the chair, purse on her lap, feet crossed beneath her. 

Watts eyed her, sprawled in her chair like she lived in it. "Beer," she repeated, mimicking drinking with her thumb and forefinger. "You want?" 

Amanda blinked, and suddenly shook her head. "Oh, no thanks!" she responded as politely as she could. "I'm driving!" 

"You're what?" 

"DRIVING!" she tried again, but the music was loud, and her ears were ringing, and Watts just stared at her like she had a second head. 

"... Okay," she mouthed, and rapped at the tabletop with her fingertips; bopping that shaggy head of hers to the music and taking a bit gulp of her own beer. 

It was the longest minute ever, with Amanda still board straight and Watts tapping against the table, before Watts finally slumped over, and looked at her. 

"Okay, I have to be honest," she yelled, "I didn't think you'd show." Amanda quirked an eyebrow, small smirk drifting across her lips. "And now that you're here I don't know what to do with you!" 

She couldn't fault her for her honesty. 

"Yeah," she admitted. "I called your bluff, and you called mine." 

And here they were, staring at each other in SKAG'S of all places, and even Amanda found herself wondering what the hell she had been thinking, sliding WATTS her number, because... what the hell were they supposed to do now? 

Turns out, she underestimated the tomboy in leather, because there was another minute of fidgeting, before she suddenly leaned over, and said, "You wanna get out of here?" 

"What?" 

"Get OUT," she repeated. "Of HERE." She pantomimed two fingers walking for the door. "This place... is a little loud for this." 

"What? All the staring and awkward pauses?" 

And for the first time, she saw a genuine smile cross Watts' face, a minute expression that was suppressed as soon as it came out, but it was enough to let Amanda breathe, a bit, as Watts' mouth twitched, and she just cocked her head and looked again.

"So?" 

"My head is killing me," she admitted, and while Watts stood so fast she nearly toppled over her chair, it took Amanda nearly a minute to shuffle the wood against the floor, gathering her purse under her arm and flicking her hair over her shoulder. 

When she turned, Watts' expression was blank. 

"What?" 

"You done?" 

Amanda glanced quickly at her purse, checking to make sure she had everything. "Yes." 

Watts continued to stare.

"What?" 

Watts just shook her head, rolled her eyes, and muttered, "Let's go." Amanda was still trying to figure out what she had done, when Watts pushed her out of the club, tossing a scathing glare at the leather guy when they passed. 

\-- 

"What the fuck are you doing?" 

Amanda paused, found Watts staring quizzically at her over her pepperoni pizza, as Amanda once again rubbed at her earlobe. 

"Aren't your ears still ringing?" she asked, knocking at the side of her head again, shaking out her red mane. 

"What? From the music?" Taking a bite of her pizza, Watts chewed thoughtfully, shrugging. "I don’t know. Been playing it so loud, I don't even hear it anymore, you know? I feel it. The beat." 

"The beat." Amanda's eyes drifted down to Watt's free hand, rapping at the cheap plastic countertop of the Italian pizzeria. "Right," she said, suddenly nodding. "Your drums." 

For once, Watts looked almost embarrassed, glancing down at her fingertips and slipping them into her lap. "It's a way to make order out of the controlled chaos that is my life," she said flippantly. It was the way she said it, that caught Amanda, a flash of something deeper, that made her stare just a second longer, mouth turned slightly downward, fingers absently toying with the tip of her straw. Watts misconstrued the scrutiny, and just laughed uncomfortably. "You probably don't understand-" 

"No, I do," she interrupted smoothly. "I mean... I did. I used to play. Not the drums, but... something else." She smiled quickly. "Before high school." 

"Oh yeah?" Immediately curious, Watts leaned forward. "What?" 

Oddly, she felt suddenly shy, slumping back in her seat. "It's stupid." 

"Oh, come on. Spill it. What did Amanda Jones play, back in the day?" 

"It's stupid!" 

"Come on! I wanna know!" 

She flushed, glancing around at the families surrounding them, finally rolling her eyes, and muttering, "The flute." 

Watts blinked, thrown for a minute. "The flute." 

"Yeah." She blew into an imaginary instrument, twiddling her fingers. "The flute!" 

"That’s... phallic." 

"Oh, SHUT UP!" she burst, laughing alongside of her, kicking at her legs, while Watts ducked away, reaching for her pizza. 

\-- 

No one was more amazed than she was when she came home nearly midnight and realized that she had had a good time. 

Even more amazingly, the single thing they had in common, neither had brought up. 

\--

As awkward as that first night was, there remained an unspoken agreement: never again mention on the fact that it was only pure boredom that kept them both in each other's company. 

There was really no other reason why the two would be friends, but Amanda Jones found herself actually looking forward to Watt's calls, and now, when she had a half day or a long lunch hour, she drove to the garage, sitting up on a greasy table top that she always made sure to wipe at least three times before she put her butt on it, handing Watts her own burger, and picking at her fries. 

Conversation was easy, too, after the initial jumpstart that had sputtered. Watts turned out to have a ridiculously sarcastic sense of humor, one Amanda appreciated, because it meant they could throw barbs at each other. They were little ones that hardly stung anymore, because all Watts was pure bluster anyhow, grinning at her with the dirty smile as she peeked out from under the car hood. 

Two weeks after their first initial outing, Amanda filed her nails, and broached the subject that never came up. 

"So how's Keith?" 

She purposely kept her head down, but she heard the harder jerk of the wrench, the clang of the tool against the concrete. 

"Why do you ask?" Watts replied flatly, and the tone of it caught Amanda, forced her to look up from her nails, to find Watts buried beneath the hood of the car. 

"Simple curiosity," she said simply. "Can't I ask how my friend's boyfriend is?" 

There was a snort. "Right, yeah. Sure you can." 

A long silence, and Amanda sighed, eyes rolling, "You know, Watts, if you have a problem-" 

"I don't have a fucking problem." 

"Clearly you do." 

"What so now you're a fucking mind reader?" 

Amanda blinked, slipping her file into her purse. "Look, Watts, if you're jealous or something-" 

"Why the hell would I be jealous of you?" It was nearly a shout, and the hood slammed down, and Amanda was left open-mouthed. "You're really full of yourself, you know that?" 

And that was when her temper kicked in. With a roll of her eyes, she pushed off the table. "I don't have to listen to this." 

"Yeah, maybe you don't." 

She shook her head, gathering her purse under her shoulder, moving fast. "Call me when you're off your cycle," she snapped. 

They were interrupted, and Amanda was forced to stop, when a convertible swerved into the station, blaring its horn. 

She found herself frozen, eyes widening with horror. 

Hardy stared her down, eyes roving from her boots to her face, and his arrogant smile took hold. "Amanda Jones." 

She almost didn't notice Watts creep up beside her, wiping her black greasy hands on an equally dirty rag. 

"What do you want?" 

His eyes moved from her to Watts, and he nearly scowled. "Well I'm in the fucking full service station, what the hell do you think I want?" Amanda's spine stiffened, and she glanced at Watts, jaw hardening noticeably. "Fill it up," he said, dismissing her before he set eyes on Amanda again. "Slumming again?" he said pointedly.

With a skip of her heart and a flash of hatred, she found her voice. "No," she answered roughly. "No, I stopped doing that when I dumped you." 

"Ooooh. Ouch." He grinned. Watts jerked the nozzle in the cradle, a noticeable thump. "Be careful with that thing!" he snapped, before he grinned, a white gleam of teeth. "Well, white trash always did know its kind, isn't that right, baby?" 

"FUCK off, asswipe." Amanda heard, suddenly overwhelmed when Hardy was showered with gas, pumped from the nozzle of a livid Watts.

"WATTS!" 

"You BITCH!" Shaken into action, Amanda lunged forward, pulling Watts back as a sputtering Hardy jerked from his seat. "You fucking DYKE!" 

"Stay the hell away from her!" she snapped, shoving Watts behind her, trying to hold the struggling blonde back. 

"Get the hell away from the bitch, Amanda," he snapped, eyes bloodshot, horribly red. "She's dead." 

"If you lay one finger on her, I'll have you arrested so fast you won't have time to say 'trust fund', Hardy," she snapped. "Just go home." 

He glared, but she kept her ground, because Hardy was a coward, and she knew, he wouldn't touch her. 

"So that's how it is then, Amanda? Wasn't enough you chose a fag art boy, but you gotta go muff diving, too?" 

"FUCK YOU," Watts said again. 

"GO HOME, Hardy," Amanda said again, eyes glittering.

He stared, long and hard, gas dripping from his hair, and he pointed, moving back. "I'm going to get your ass fired," he snapped. "You hear that, you fucking dyke? Your ass is MINE." 

"Hardy?" Amanda called, and when he paused, just shook her head contemptuously. "FUCK YOU." 

He left them, and strangely exhilarated, Amanda turned immediately to Watts, still holding the streaming gas. 

"Oh, God - give me this." Taking it gingerly, she set it back on the pump. 

Watts just gave her another 'you're an alien look'. "Who the hell are you?" 

\-- 

"I'm sure you're not going to get fired." 

She had a dirty rag in her hand, and she was wiping herself haphazardly, wrinkling her nose at the almost overpowering smell of gasoline that seemed to seep into her fingertips. 

Watts wore a blank stare, almost dazed, as she ran her fingertips through her dirty blonde bangs, body tense. Even then, she managed an uncaring smile, one that didn't quite match her eyes. "Doesn't fucking matter," she muttered. 

"I'll tell Lonnie what happened, okay?" Glancing up, Amanda was careful as she wiped at a smudge on Watt's cheek. "He's not going to fire you over one asshole." 

"I don't need the money," Watts snapped, jerking her face away. "I was quitting soon, anyway." 

Fingers faltering, Amanda pulled back. "What?" 

"Keith wants me to go up to LA with him. You know... at the art school." 

It was unexpected, and it surprised her, how she suddenly felt tense, how her eyes dropped, and she stopped breathing, because she knew Keith and Watts were serious, but living together? 

"At the school? With Keith?" 

"Yeah..." Watts shrugged. "Was saving up to move down there. I mean, really, what do I got here, right?" 

What did she have here? Jerks like Hardy, and a dirty garage. 

"I supposed drum sets are transportable," she murmured, remembering suddenly Watts' inflated bank account. 

Amanda was no stranger to adrenaline. It coursed through her until it didn't, where she was left shaky, and overwhelmed, and just a little bit frightened. 

It was when she started to giggle at a thoroughly inappropriate moment, that the reality of what had transpired hit her, sitting across from Watts in the darkened garage, reeking of gasoline, and staring into a smudged face. 

"What?" 

"Did you see the look on his face?" she breathed, snorting accidentally, and slapping her hands over her mouth. Watts' usual bewildered stare was now standard, and it didn't bother Amanda at all that she got it again, before her partner-in-crime suddenly broke into a smile herself, giggle escaping from her lips like she was trying to fight it. 

It only made Amanda laugh harder, as Hardy reappeared in her mentality, dressed in gas, sputtering and raving. 

"Fuck," Watts breathed, "He looked ready to shit himself." 

She laughed harder, eyes watering now, trying to smother the noise and failing miserably when Watts whimpered. 

It took her a minute to freeze, glance up to catch Watts' face, and suddenly realize that Watts was no longer laughing. 

The blonde had tears running down her cheeks, and a choked sob emerged, before she shook her head at her emotion. "Fuck," she whispered, as if furious with herself. "Fuck." 

Amanda Jones had rarely been stunned speechless, yet there had been so many moments in her brief friendship with Watts that she had been caught unawares, that she supposed she should have expected something as out of character as Watts so genuinely upset. 

But she still had no idea what to do.

Suddenly silent, she waited, careful as she pressed a palm to her friend's shoulder, only to have her jerk away, covering her face with her palms, Watts desperate to calm herself. 

"Watts..." she began, softly, gently. "Watts - what is it?" 

A moment, and she tried again, and this time, Watts let her hand stay. She felt hot, sweaty skin, trembling distinctly, and she squeezed, eyes stinging suddenly, with different tears that had invaded her minutes before. 

"Shit," Watts whispered, wiping quickly at her eyes. "I'm sorry-"

"Don't be sorry," she said in a low murmur, rubbing at her shoulder. "Just tell me what's wrong." 

Watts didn't say anything for a long time, and Amanda found herself nearly on end, hand moving mechanically along her shoulder, forgetting once or twice to breathe. 

Finally, Watts managed to look at her, crystal blue eyes that shone with brilliance, before she glanced back down and mumbled something that Amanda couldn't quite make out. 

"What?"

"Keith," Watts said hoarsely. "Keith." 

"Is he okay?" she asked immediately, and her mind suddenly flashed with horrible scenarios. Keith was mugged. Keith was in a car accident. Keith was on drugs . Keith was a complete idiot and dumped her-

"Keith's... gay." 

Amanda's mind promptly imploded. 

She must have looked silly, the way she had been completely flabbergasted by the news, and at first, she was sure she had heard incorrectly, until she thought about Keith and remembered the sensitive artist, and suddenly it just made sense. 

Keith was gay.

"... Wow." 

It was an understatement, really. Watts laughed, this bitter noise that made Amanda remember that this was WATTS, who was in love with Keith and had been in love with him for years. 

"Yeah," Watts sniffed. 

"Oh, God..." Amanda tightened her grip, slid her palm to Watts' face and gently smoothed bangs from her eyes. "Oh, honey-" 

"Fucking typical, right?" Watts managed. "Went away to art school and came back a fag." 

Amanda didn't know what to say to that. It was harsh and judgmental, but she hadn't known Watts to be any different. 

"How did you find out?" she finally managed. 

"He told me." Watts wiped viciously at her eyes. "Told me he was gay and that he needed me to be okay with it because he would never be able to tell anyone else. He wanted me to love him like always because he needed me." She shook her head darkly. "Fucking Keith." 

"And what did you say?" Amanda asked calmly.

"What could I say?" Watts swallowed. "It's KEITH. I love the fuck. I've always loved the fuck. I’m always gonna love the fuck, even if he's a fucking fairy." 

And that was that. Of course Watts was devastated. 

Amanda felt hopelessly square when she tentatively said, "So... then I'm assuming there is a... uh... gentleman?" 

Watts glanced at her oddly, but nodded. "Peter," she spat, in this odd tone, familiar. "Beautiful little blonde rich stoner who I hated at first." 

Amanda found herself at a lost. There was a reason Watts shared this at her, and now, her odd behavior, why they would never speak of Keith, it all made sense. But she had no idea what to say to this. 

She didn't know how to tell her it would be okay, because while Amanda's ex-boyfriend was a smug, arrogant asshole, Hardy was anything but gay, and while Amanda had no boyfriend at the moment, she had been told she had her pick of the freshman frat pledges at USC, and a couple juniors to boot. 

She didn't know if Watts really had anyone. And even if she did - she loved Keith.

In the end, all she COULD say was, "I'm sorry." 

It wasn't fair. Watts was beautiful and yes, a fashion victim, but earnest and loyal and sincere. She had flawless skin and a face that could look stunning even with the tiny bit of lip gloss Watts used. And while Amanda would always hate the leather gloves, she admired Watts with her hairstyle, shaggy and longer than it used to be and blonde, which gave her a punk edge and made her look modern and cool. There had to be guys out there that could look at her and want her. Because Watts was beautiful. 

Careful, she traced her finger along Watts' cheek, until Watts looked at her and she let go, hands dropping into her lap, now awkward and uncomfortable. 

They sat in silence, until Watts sucked in her breath and blew it out. "They want me to go up there." 

"So you said," Amanda responded carefully.

Watts nodded. "Peter got me this audition. This drum audition for the school." 

"The music program?" Amanda blinked, and suddenly she found herself grinning, "Oh, wow! Watts, that's... that's..." 

"Stupid," Watts interrupted.

"Amazing," Amanda corrected. 

Watts looked skeptical. "If I do well they might offer me a scholarship."

"Oh my God..." Amanda squeezed her hands. "Watts, that's GREAT!" 

"It's not it's-"

"It's an amazing opportunity!" Amanda smiled widely. "Just think about it. You'll get to go to college!" 

"Right," Watts said sarcastically. "Cause that's been my big dream." 

"Well, maybe it should be," she answered. 

Watts didn't look convinced. She merely shoved her hair out of her face and stared hard at Amanda, before she said, "It's this Saturday." 

Amanda took in a shaky breath. "You'll be fine." 

"I will if you come with me." 

Watts never stopped surprising her. 

"Oh, Watts..." 

"It's fucking frightening," she interrupted. "I've been there before, but as Keith's friend, I've never... I need someone to come with in case I fuck up." 

She actually wanted HER to come along. To art school. 

"Watts... I don't know..." 

Watts had never asked her for one thing. Even getting them to spend time together had been a dare, a bluff that had been called, and now, they were stuck together, for better or for worse. 

But Watts wasn't goading her, or daring her. She was genuinely asking her, and it was only when Amanda saw the frightened deer eyes of her friend that she finally just smiled. 

\-- 

When Watts pushed at her car door and got out to greet Keith, Amanda couldn't help but wonder why on earth she had never caught on to the fact that he was gay. 

Amanda was conservative by nature, but she kept her mouth shut, craning her neck to see through the tiny windows of Watts' dingy car as Watts flew into her best friend's arms, and Amanda got her first look at Keith since she knew the truth.

It was there. In his sensitive smile and lanky body, too white t-shirt, and tight jeans. She couldn't quite picture how, but now that she knew, it was almost impossible NOT to think of him as anything else. 

Incidentally, it made her wonder slightly where she had fit into Keith's romantic history.

"Amanda!" 

She was nervous, palm wrapped around the handle of her side of the door, and she had no idea why. Still, she took in a breath, muttered to herself, "Don't be so scared, Amanda," and pushed open her door, pulling on her sunglasses and running fingers through her hair. Amanda smiled as sincerely as she could as she pulled her duffel bag, waving at Keith and Watts. 

"Hi." 

Keith looked odd, wearing that forced grin that he wore during that god-awful first thirty minutes of their 'date', like he was proving a point, or at least wanted to. 

"Amanda Jones," he said. "I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again." 

She never realized how annoying it was, when people pronounced her full name like it was some sort of title. "Well, you were obviously mistaken." 

There was an awkward pause before Keith disengaged himself and pointed toward an absolutely beautiful blond, lean and lanky. Standing next to Watts, he looked like her long lost fraternal twin. 

"This is Peter," he said.

"The unforgettable, unattainable Amanda Jones," he drawled, coming forward and taking Amanda into a delicate handshake that suddenly unnerved her. "How very climatic. A pleasure." With that, he squeezed her hand, turned, and found Watts. "Watts, darling? Are you ready to change your life? Or fuck it up forever?" 

"Have you ever been sober in your life?" she responded, plucking the cigarette out of his mouth and planting a kiss on his lips, a move that made Amanda blink. 

"I don't see the point. Keith, be a man and help the lady with her bags," he said, slapping Keith on the shoulder. "We have a day ahead of us." 

Keith didn't say anything, as he pulled her duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder, and Amanda said nothing back. But she smiled at Watts, as the girl grinned and wrapped an arm around her waist. "What do you think?" 

"I hate him," she said immediately.

"Yeah," Watts agreed. "Give him an hour. He'll give you some weed and the next thing you know, you'll be ready to have his skinny blond gay babies." 

Amanda wasn't too sure, but she followed Watts into the shabby apartment building anyway. 

\-- 

It was odd, to sit with Keith and have nothing to say to him. He was, after all, the man who had inadvertently changed her life, challenged her and forced to confront everything she had ever been afraid of to truly finally be herself. 

Now, she was in his world, in a large auditorium, empty except for a small cluster of judges and a large stage, not unlike, she reasoned, where they had first kissed. 

"I can't say I wasn't surprised to hear you were coming," Keith said softly, breaking the silence, and shifting his legs.

"Oh, it was a surprise to me, too," she murmured, eyes up on stage, where a set of drums sat, pristine and ready. "She asked me to come, and I couldn't say no." 

"I didn't know you were such good friends." 

"Well, there was a lot of things Watts didn't know about you either, wasn't there?" It was a cheap shot, but she took it. Keith wasn't exactly being subtle with incredulous skepticism, and Amanda felt no need to justify her presence. 

He surprised her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him glance at her briefly, then look away. "Point taken. Can I ask how you two became such good friends?" 

"Frankly," she said after a moment, shifting her head to glare at him, "We just got THAT bored." 

There was a scuttle of chairs, before Amanda found herself nearly straddled by Peter, who grinned wickedly at her and then shifted over, falling into the seat next to Keith's. 

"Our little tomboy is up next," he said softly. "Let's prepare ourselves to be astounded, amazed and ecstatic!" 

"You're losing your way with words," Keith murmured. "You should have said 'Amused'." 

"I'm always amused," Peter corrected. 

"Shut up," Amanda cut in, a sing song tone that turned breathless as soon as she noted a familiar figure, stepping hesitantly onto the stage, loud boots creating a dull echo. 

"Susan Watts," one judge said, monotone and odd, and Amanda found herself smiling, because Susan sounded clean and wholesome, and for some reason, fit Watts completely. 

"Hi," Watts said, clutching at her drumsticks, "Should I just..." 

"Whenever you want," said the judge, and Amanda liked him immediately. 

She found herself on pins and needles, watching with soft puffs of air as Watts stepped into her chair, adjusted her seat, and stared hard at her drums, almost a tiny blur from where they were sitting.

Then came the beat. Loud, distinct, and it nearly made Amanda jump in her seat, before Watts started moving, fast. The percussion followed suit, until the beat became beats and the beats became music – rhythm.

Amanda was transfixed. 

It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Finally, she understood why she had felt her discomfort, when Keith plastered her picture in his art museum, because that wasn't reality - and this was. 

Watts was lost in her sound, and it wasn't noise, it wasn't notes, just beats that came together until they pounded with her heart. When it stopped, she felt light heated and airy and wasn't sure why until she realized she had somehow stopped breathing.

Watts was right. Amanda really did learn to love Peter right about when he breathed, "And so the duckling became a swan." 

\-- 

This was an art party. With all sorts of eccentric people that looked like Keith and Watts and not one that looked like Shane or Hardy. For once, Amanda felt out of place and odd. 

"People keep staring at me like I'm an alien," she grumbled. Watts snorted, wrapping an arm around her waist and planting a kiss on her cheek. It was unexpected, but Watts just grinned merrily at her bewildered look. 

"Thanks for coming," she said, all cheeks and teeth, until Amanda blinked and sniffed. 

"Did you smoke weed?" she breathed. 

That seemed to amuse her drugged friend, who rolled her eyes and squeezed harder. "Just a little, June Cleaver."

"You're taking pot?!" 

Watts blinked. "You've never done it?" 

And Amanda seriously WAS in the Twilight Zone, because Watts made it sound like she WAS an alien. 

"I've just never seen the point," she managed. "I mean, it disorientates you, impairs your judgment, makes you smell bad, and did you know it kills brain cells?" 

"Oh, Amanda Jones..." Watts clucked her tongue. "It's also fucking fantastic, and since I'm feeling particularly proud of myself-" 

Amanda was now distinctly uncomfortable, because Peter was being motioned over. She stared wide-eyed into the small room spilling out with people who were smiling at Watts and acted like she was their long lost buddy.

"Watts, I'm not feeling too comfortable with this-" 

"Peter, she has NEVER partaken," Watts said, holding her still, and Peter looked horrified. Before Amanda knew it, there was a roach, lit and inches from her lips. 

"Just one puff," he whispered. 

It was like one of those 'just say no' commercials and Amanda would have stuck to her guns, if Watts hadn't known her so damned well. 

"Unless you're scared." 

That was it. It was enough to take the stupid thing and inhale to resounding cheers, leaving her sputtering as she blinked and felt dizzy and lightheaded, and... 

Wow. 

"That's it, beautiful," she heard, "Welcome to our world." 

Peter kissed her, a chaste, lingering peck, and when he let go, she felt woozy and happy, and she realized, through the fog, that she was somehow alone in the big room. 

\--

In this room was chaos. 

Amanda Jones had gotten drunk exactly once, at a college party with Hardy her sophomore year, and had spent nearly the whole night puking in the bushes. It was quite possibly the most disgusting experience of her life, and had cost her her best pair of shoes.

It was worse in her sorority. Amanda wasn't a control freak, but she was slightly paranoid and sometimes suspicious, and she saw her sisters stumble into guys rooms, coming out hours later looking glassy-eyed, and confused. 

It wasn't attractive. 

"It's pathetic," she decided, curled against the masculine leg, eyes closing, body decidedly limp. 

Soft fingers etched through her hair, and she nearly purred, smiling up at the face of a blurry Keith. 

"You're very pretty." 

He smiled, gentle and sincere, smoothing her bangs from her face, indulgent and sweet. "So are you." 

"Were you always gay, Keith?" she asked, trying to move onto her back, and then, when her body refused to comply, flopping back. It wasn't worth the effort. "Did you always like guys?" 

"I don't know," he responded, "And right now, I only like one guy." He paused, and she narrowed her eyes at him, before he grinned, "It's very odd to be talking about this with you." 

She considered that, before her eyes closed and she rather clumsily put her fingertip to her lips, mumbling through it, "Your secret's safe with me, Handsome. Shhhh. I won't tell a soul." 

She heard him chuckling, and didn't think much of it. Instead her eyes opened, and she saw a beautiful face with warm brown eyes and very nice lips, and because they were alone in his stupid little starving artist attic room, she pushed herself up and pressed her lips against his. 

It was natural and nice, and everything that it had been the first time, but that's all it was, so she smiled, sucked lightly on his bottom lip, and pulled away, nearly falling off the bed. 

"Are you okay?" he asked, holding onto her with a really strong grip, and she blinked and smiled. The door opened, and she looked and found Peter, pretty Peter, who suddenly had his arms around her waist. 

"I kissed your boyfriend," she announced. "With my tongue." 

His lips quirked, and he smiled. "How did he taste?" 

"Like you." 

He only grinned wider, and kissed her too, and she was right, Keith did taste like Peter. "Your girlfriend is looking for you," he whispered against her lips. "I would advise you find her before she disappears." 

She blinked, uncomprehending at first, before she remembered how she had been alone and who she had been looking for before Keith, and suddenly she really, really wanted to see Watts. 

"I should go get her," she muttered, and pushed away, shaking at her head to try to get the cobwebs out and only managing to make herself just a little more dizzy. 

But she made it to the door, steadying herself against the wood before she pulled, opening it to the chaos in the dorm hallway. 

There were people everywhere. She stumbled into the mass, turning around and around as she looked on faces of people she would never know, had never seen before, and would never see again. 

She didn't belong here, she knew that, but she still smiled, pressed against the door and looked around, somehow a part of this world, but never really in it. 

"Hey redhead!" Someone called out, lofty and uncaring. "Can I paint your picture?" 

"No," she responded, smile wide and happy. "Not even a sketch." She pushed off the wall and kept moving, glancing into dorms and finding more art students, always searching for Watts. 

When she found her, it wasn't how she expected. She turned a corner, and nearly tripped. When she caught sight of Watts, she was more concerned about not falling flat on her face than the hazy blur of her friend, stuck in the shadows talking to a shaggy brunette that had approached them earlier. 

It was when she caught her balance, and focused on the fact that she finally found Watts that she truly grasped what she was seeing. 

Even then it took a minute, two, to really process it. 

There was something in her throat, that slid into her stomach, hot and searing and hard. It twisted in her gut painfully before she jerked around, turning away, stumbling back around the corner to push through the art people who were loud and scary and nothing like her.

It took her forever to get back to the safety of Keith's room. When she got there, she nearly fell in, slamming the door behind her. 

When they looked at her, bare-chested and beautiful, she just said huskily, "I feel sick." 

Five minutes later, she was covered with a threadbare blanket, huddled underneath, eyes shut trying hard to control her shuddering, desperate to burn away the image of Watts in that woman's arms, drown out Watts' little moan when the woman kissed her again. 

\-- 

Watts returned at eight in the morning, to find Amanda Jones sitting on the makeshift cot, as put together as she could be, but with circles under her eyes that she couldn't hide with make up, and a tightness in her mouth that made her good morning smile look fake and insincere. 

Looking at her friend, Amanda couldn't notice any tangible differences. Watts looked disheveled and wrinkled, but she always looked that way, and her lips didn't appear swollen or chapped. They were just her regular perfectly shaped lips, shiny with the bit of lip gloss that Watts liked to put on. 

But there was something in her smile, odd and stale, that caused a terrible, uncomfortable tightening in Amanda's chest. 

"Hey," she began. 

"Hi," Amanda returned, in a low tone, because her head was ready to break open. She was never taking drugs again. "I was worried about you." 

"Yeah..." Watts answered after a minute. "Sorry. I meant to come back, but I started lookin' for you and then there was this ..." she paused, and Amanda glanced up, staring intensely as Watts just took a breath and smiled casually, "-group of people who I started talking to and I lost track of the time." 

Amanda was annoyed, thoroughly irritated, and uncomfortable. She stared at Watts just a second longer before she had to look away. She was looking for something, and didn't know what it was, which just made things more confusing, and made her more nauseous. 

"Where are the guys?" Watts asked, marching into the room, dropping her leather jacket and eyeing her suspiciously. "Oh, God... you look-" 

"I know," she snapped, cutting her off, burying bangs in her head before she took in a shuddering breath, and tried to look at her for more than two seconds. "The guys went to class, and I want to go home." 

She was cold and impersonal. Watts of course, noted it immediately. The blonde was caught off-guard, boot stopping their clonking as she just stood and stared. "Yeah, sure," she said after a moment, before she gave her another glance, and asked, "Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine," Amanda said, eyes on the floor, fingers in her hair. "I just feel really sick and I really want to go home. Okay?" 

She couldn't look at Watts, but she still bit her lip and fought a shudder when Watts breathed a minute later, "All right." 

\--

She didn't say much in the car. Just monosyllabic answers to Watts' awkward attempts to make conversation, feigning sleep and exhaustion the entire way. Anything to keep her from having to look at the stranger next to her. 

She kept her eyes closed for a good half hour, but all she saw in glaring Technicolor was Watts from the night before, so she settled instead for facing the window, looking but never seeing the view from outside. 

It was an absurdly long car ride, and she didn't stop to wonder at her hammering heart or nausea, because she really did feel sick and she really did have a headache. Truthfully, it was quite possibly worse than that night sophomore year when she puked all over her shoes. 

Watts finally got the message about twenty minutes away from her home, and didn't say a word to her until they pulled in front of her house. Amanda tried to will herself to keep her stomach down long enough to get into the house. 

Watts stopped her, hand on her wrist, closing her fingers tight. "I know you're pissed about something, Amanda-" 

"I'm not," she lied, closing her eyes and swallowing down the bile, "I'm really sick, Watts, I just want to go home-" 

"Do you need help-"

"No, just let me go, please." 

Amanda kept her eyes on the handle, nearly desperate, until Watts said, "I'm sorry about making you take that roach, 'Mand-"

"It's fine-" 

"It's not-" 

"Watts, just let me the fuck go!" And she did. Her grip loosened immediately, and Amanda jerked out of the seat, pulling at her duffel bag with unnatural force, and stumbling toward her house. 

She didn't look back. 

\-- 

Amanda Jones liked to think she was a decent person. Maybe not a good person, but decent. Able to stand by her principles and while she cared about class and society and what other people thought, she still had a conscious; she still had a heart. 

Amanda Jones liked to think she wasn't racist or prone to discrimination, but she had heard enough of her father and Hardy and her old friends talk to know that some people just did not fit into her world. 

The problem was there was no clear line, because Amanda had erased it a long time ago, before things had gotten complicated. Before she had forgotten that being alone and right was the reason she had started all of this to begin with. 

What Watts did on her own was her personal business, but Amanda Jones knew herself too well, and she knew what she saw was going to be a problem, because it was damned well driving her crazy now. 

She wasn't a hypocrite or a racist or someone who discriminated, but Amanda Jones knew that it was a good idea to stop being friends with people like Watts and Keith. She didn't fit in their world, and people like them just didn't fit in hers. 

Amanda didn’t really know what world they really fit into. 

\-- 

When Watts called, she told her mother to tell her she wasn't home, and she stayed away from the garage, eating lunch in the little backroom at the bank, picking through her mother's chicken salad and talking to Harry, a cute loans officer who wanted three kids and a dog. 

Amanda Jones was aware of her faults, and she used them, because as long as she didn't THINK about Watts and what she had seen, she found herself relatively okay. It hovered in the back of her mind like a forgotten parasite, and it was work, to not think about it, but she was relatively successful. 

Five days after the incident on a busy Friday afternoon, Amanda finished with a customer and took a quick scan of the line to discover that in line was a girl with a leather jacket, shaggy blond hair and a gleam in her eye. What happened next was clearly panic because Amanda didn't remember actually doing it. The next thing she knew the 'NEXT WINDOW PLEASE' sign was placed on her window and she was walking away, consumed by the quick glimpse of the startled glance that Watts had given her.

Her heart was beating, and she had to struggle to breathe normally, and when Harry asked if she was okay, she just smiled and said it was nothing.

She waited until Watts was gone before she went back to her window.

\-- 

Amanda knew she was being cold and calloused, but Watts should have been smart enough to get the message. Unfortunately, Watts always had been one to call her bluff, and it was because of that that Amanda Jones, the last to leave the bank thanks to being chewed out by her manager for closing her window, walked by herself into an empty parking lot and discovered Watts sitting on the hood of her car. 

Watts always did have a way of surprising her. 

"I got the scholarship," she called out in a cold, stilted voice, eyes hidden in the darkness. 

When cornered, Amanda found herself retreating into polite civility. "That's great, Watts." 

Watts eyed her and Amanda glanced away, at her shoes, heat flushing her cheeks, and heart beating rapidly. She was ashamed, deep down, but her stomach twisted painfully and she felt overwhelmed. 

"Fuck you," Watts suddenly announced, angry enough to jerk Amanda's gaze back to her face, to discover Watts shoving off her car, and shaking her head. "I should have fucking known-" 

"Watts..." Her eyes closed, and her fingers came to the bridge of her nose, because Amanda didn't want to deal with it, but Watts deserved better-

"No! This was stupid to begin with. I knew you were a bitch from the first day, I don’t know why I thought-"

Her hand flew out, and she snapped onto her arm, keeping her from moving away. "It got HARD, Watts-" 

"What the fuck are you talking about?!" 

"We're different," Amanda whispered. "We're too different-" She was close enough to see her eyes, and Amanda found herself stuttering when she suddenly noted that they were moist. "Watts..." 

"Stop touching me," she sniffed, and it was like the energy had gone out of her too, because she just stood there, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand, shuffling her feet while Amanda stared, a grim, sad smile drifting on her face. "Look, I just- forget it, okay? I got the message, I just... I don't know why I came out here-" 

"I saw you kissing that girl." 

The sentence was damning, and it stopped Watts cold. The other girl jerked back, mouth falling open slightly to see the Amanda's own expression. 

"I'm not gay," she said, voice cracking slightly. "All right? I don't even know how that happened. I mean, one minute I was lookin' for you, and then one of those drama dykes started talking to me, and I was really stoned, and then she started kissing me- I broke it off." 

Amanda took her in, with her shuffling feet and rosy pink lips. She felt suddenly cold, a prickle of irrational anger sliding into her, settling at her spine. "You still kissed her," she snapped. 

She was ready to turn away, but couldn't quite make herself, because Watts' gaze was wide and confused, until it narrowed in understanding. She laughed, bitter and resigned.

"Fine," she answered. "Yeah, I kissed her. Whatever. But you should know?" Leaning forward, she gave her a steely glare, "Your Bigot is showing." 

The word made her cringe, and she shuddered, turning and following the girl. "I'm NOT a bigot." 

"Fuck you, Amanda. Go back to your hetero homophobic world-"

"That isn't what this is about, Watts!" 

Watts turned, a sneer on her lips, challenge gleaming in her eyes. She was beautiful and furious. "What's it about, then?" 

Amanda was losing control, and her desperation consumed her. 

This was her decision. She would never deny that. It was conscious and she made it - pushing through the chaos screaming in her ear and the tumbling emotions in her heart. 

She moved, crossed the few feet between them, wrapping palms around hips, and brought her lips crashing down onto Watts into a fierce kiss. 

Her world suddenly became nothing but sensation: electricity spiking down her spine, shudders swallowed in lips and heat flooding her stomach, shooting further down. 

The kiss wasn't gentle or sweet or normal. It felt raw, and it had taste, and when Watts grabbed hold of her shoulders and swept inside her mouth with a firm tongue, her knees nearly buckled.

Her heart flooded, her eyes watered, and it was just too much.

"I can't," she mumbled against lips that tasted like cherry lip gloss, pushing at arms that were delicate and small. She struggled against a body that was female and jerked her head from the soft and willing mouth. "I'm sorry, I can't-" she snapped, and she ran, away from Watts and away from this, sliding into her car and wiping at her tears desperately, turning on the ignition and speeding away. 

\--

She stood under the showerhead for at least an hour, eyes closed, letting the droplets cascade over her face with scalding wet plops, nearly drowning her.

She stayed there, hiding from her world, until she couldn't stand to stay there any longer, and instead slid under her covers, closed her eyes, and curled into a fetal position. 

She couldn't sleep. Instead she was haunted with flashbacks and memories and desperate just to be at peace from herself, she slipped her palm between her legs and furiously rubbed until she came with a whimper, tears slipping down her cheeks. 

With the release came fitful sleep, but even in her dreams, Amanda couldn't hide from what she had done. 

\--

Her shift on Saturday was a small one, the bank closed early on the weekends, and Amanda considered calling in sick, but her manager was already upset, and frankly, she needed to get out of her bed, away from her house and her mother's incessant tapping at her door.

Inside she felt oddly hollow, but she smiled and worked, kept her mind busy, until there was a quick lull and she found herself shaking, hands against her face, taking a deep breath.

She supposed it would have been a moment of weakness, when she found herself clicking in familiar account numbers, and saw Susan Watts' information flickering across her screen.

Watts never stopped surprising her.

She blinked, double-checked the amount in the savings account, quickly typing in the history retrieval and saw Harry's name. 

"Harry?" she asked, clicking on the tab, and turning, "Do you remember my friend, the blonde with the leather jacket? Did she come to you yesterday?" 

He paused, glancing up from his paperwork to rub at his head, crane it thoughtfully. "I think so... wait... yeah - pretty face, kind of a tomboy?" 

She flushed. "It sounds like her." 

"Yeah, she was here. Cleaned out her account." 

Amanda glanced at the big zeros on the screen. "All of it?" 

"Yeap. Asked about closing it too-" 

Her fingers knit together. "When?" 

"Didn't say..." he paused, taking in her expression. "Everything okay?" 

"Fine," she managed a stiff smile, motioning for the customer who drifted into the line. "It's fine. Thanks." 

\--

It wasn't fine. Watts had withdrawn her entire savings account, which was substantial, and when Amanda drove past the garage, the blue jalopy that she called a car wasn't there. Instead, there was a guy with spiky hair who leered at her as she slowed.

There was a lump in her throat that was bordering on painful. If Watts had indeed quit and had taken out her savings, it meant she was leaving to be with Keith and Peter.

Rationally speaking, this was ideal. Watts would go away, and Amanda would be able to act like the whole ridiculous thing had never happened. She could go back to college and tell her sorority sisters that she had spent three uneventful months pushing money and pens at customers, bored to tears. 

Instead, she found herself pulling up behind a beat-up Volkswagen, peering at a seedy little house that nearly shook with noise. 

Now at Watts' house, Amanda Jones was once again lost. She stood outside of it for a full minute, and then she began to walk, taking in the noise as it became music, and her feet nearly felt the vibrations of the drums bumping up at her through the ground.

There was no one home, but the door was unlocked. Amanda moved quickly, reaching the source of the noise. She pushed open the door to discover a sweaty girl with her eyes closed, banging away like a child with pots, pans and a wooden spoon. 

She stood unnoticed and she was glad for it. She leaned against the doorway, and took in Susan Watts, oblivious to the world, naked in her emotion and her music, drowning in it, just like Amanda had drowned in her shower the night before.

There really was nothing quite as beautiful as Watts playing her drums, and Amanda felt a small smile seep onto her face, content to just watch, until Watts opened her eyes and saw her.

Her smile fell immediately, and she blushed hotly, glancing away in apology, pushing from the doorway. 

Watts regarded her, standing and moving to the radio, breathing heavily as she turned down her punk rock music, looking at her with guarded, angry eyes. 

"Your door was open," Amanda said, thumbing behind her. "I let myself in." 

"What do you want?" Watts asked, picking up a towel thrown on her bedpost and wiping her face with it, taking in a heady breath. 

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, "I just, I saw your account this morning-" 

"Are you allowed to just go around randomly looking into stranger's accounts?" Watts snapped. "Isn't that an invasion of privacy?" 

"I wasn't looking at a stranger's account," she answered softly. "I was looking at my friend's account, and I was worried." 

It was a clear opening, she felt it as soon as the words left her lips, because she hadn't acted much like a friend the last week, and Watts really had every right to ream her for it. 

But Watts always had a way of surprising her.

She let it go, instead glancing down at her sticks. 

"You're amazing on those," Amanda said, pushing away from the doorway, letting it close behind her. "You'll be a star someday." 

"It's not easy for me either, you know," Watts suddenly announced. "I know you think that it is, cause everyone in school thought I was a dyke, but it's not." 

Amanda's throat ached and her eyes stung, but she kept her distance, holding her purse against her chest, arms crossed over it. "I know." 

"And I'm not a random drone," Watts added, shifting on her feet, with that same look in her eyes, scared and wary, that she wore when she first came into Amanda's bank, weeks ago. "I'm not just another puppy in love with Amanda Jones." 

They were fighting words, and Amanda knew that Watts truly meant them. She knew it from the spark in her eye, and the set jaw, the glare that dared to meet her own. 

"I know." 

And they made her smile, touched something inside her that was warm and genuine. It was because of those words and that feeling, that she stayed silent, watching as Watts turned up the radio until the house was pulsing again, nothing around them but words and music. 

Amanda Jones had once decided she would rather be alone for the right reasons. She was pretty sure that this was wrong - wrong to everyone else, and certainly, it did not fit into her world. 

Nothing about this really fit at all. 

But she still moved forward, coming to Watts while the other girl stared at her like a frightened puppy, unsure. 

Watts was beautiful and different and soft, despite all her rough edges. When Amanda kissed her, she stiffened only slightly, frozen when Amanda took a soft breath, breathing in her skin, and pulled away. 

"I'm not gay," Watts said, in a husky, hollow, dirty voice.

"I know," Amanda responded, staring into darkened eyes and a steaming stare. "Me neither." 

But she still kissed her again, and this time, Watts kissed her back, slanting her lips hotly over hers, wrapping hands around her waist, until their bodies pressed together, and Amanda broke the kiss, tasting the corner of her mouth, then her cheek, sweaty, salty skin underneath her tongue. 

Amanda Jones was never pure, and she wasn't a virgin. Hardy had stolen her innocence, and for once, she was glad he did it, because she understood what made her hot, and what turned her on, and she knew what sex was and how it worked. When Watts trembled against her, she buried her mouth in her neck and raked her teeth against her ear, finally, deliriously, in control. 

Amanda was a direct woman, and she had made her decision. In this room, it seemed easy; to shut away the outside world and concentrate on the music, on her fevered ambitions and the glorious softness of another woman. 

She remembered Hardy, the glazed look in his eyes and the way he would touch her, breathe against her, and when Watts looked at her, she smiled, dizzy and sweaty.

Watts was beautiful when she smiled back. 

She didn't talk. When Watts tried she just shook her head, careful as she tugged lightly at the dingy white shirt her friend had on, pulling up, and nodding with encouragement when Watts hesitated. 

Hardy loved her breasts, and had loved to watch as she played with her nipples. Glancing at Watts, taking in the smooth skin, and the soft rounded curves, she finally understood. 

She was careful, she was gentle, and she kissed Watts wetly, generously, something Hardy had never done with her, when she lowered her to the bed. Amanda loved to kiss, and Watts tasted sweet, soft, salty. Her friend was trembling beneath her, and when Amanda skimmed the tip of one breast with her palm, she shuddered, whimpering against her lips, and kissing her harder, until Amanda pressed her lips against hers once last time and smiled, always gentle. She slid down and traced a nipple with her tongue, flicking it, glancing up to find smoldering eyes: a woman overwhelmed. 

It was a mirror of what she felt, her first time with Hardy, and so she pulled up and kissed her again, slanted her lips against Watts’ again and again, sucking Watts tongue in her mouth and whispering a question that made Watts freeze slightly, until the other girl nodded, dark eyes drinking her in. 

Amanda was careful, always careful, and to be honest, she wasn't sure how sex without a dick actually worked. But she knew how she liked to touch herself, and she knew how she had liked Hardy to touch her. So she kept her lips against Watts' when she unbuckled her jeans, slid down the other girl's zipper, and then dipped her hand into impossible warmth. 

It was wetter than she had imagined, so wet, but when she found what she was looking for, flicked her fingers, Watts buckled and cried out. Amanda drowned her hiss in a kiss, swallowing it down as she rubbed against her.

Watts was a musician who lived by beats, and Amanda finally understood its intoxication. She noted Watts' hips, her fingers, her aching, came with the beats of the music that swelled around them. 

She let it guide them. Watts shook as she clung to her. Amanda’s finger sped up. She ignored the ache in her forearm as Watts writhed underneath her palm. 

When Watts reached for her blindly, she met her mouth to hers, parting her lips, kissing her deeply when she felt Watts come, heard it in her moan. 

She was sweaty and her arm ached. It took effort to pull it out of Watts' jeans, and her own dress pants were uncomfortable. She was moist between her legs, and her heart was racing too fast to be completely at ease. 

But Watts was beautiful, eyes wide open, mouth parted, gasping for breath. Amanda grinned, reaching up with one manicured finger to carefully tease her stringy bangs from her forehead. 

"Fuck," Watts whispered, "That was-" 

"I know," she answered, holding her friend in her arms, protecting her in that shell of the world that they created with Watts' music and this room. 

She wasn't sure if this was right. She was pretty sure it was wrong, and this was not something she could go back to her sorority and talk about. This couldn't ever be right for her, because this didn't fit into Amanda's world. 

But she was pretty sure she was in love with Susan Watts, and at this moment, it was the only thing she really cared about.


	3. Watts & Keith.

  


Keith had fallen into a relationship driven by pure lust. 

It was different than what he had with Watts. It was new and so damned full of sex that he breathed it like air. Sometimes, that was all it seemed to be. 

There was something terribly empty and oddly intimate about he and Peter. Peter wasn't a cuddler. This wasn't just about sex or discovery, or even love, like it was with Watts. There were things to learn, secrets to hide. Some of it came naturally. Some of it still felt weird, and uncomfortable. 

In the dreary half unconscious moments after coming to after a long night, Keith was always surprised to reach out and discover toned, masculine flesh that didn't come with breasts. Once, Peter's erection had woken him up in a state of panic, until he blinked and realized what it was, why it was there, as Peter murmured things into his ear. 

He was classified as a top, though Peter had fucked him once or twice. It was still something he did only when he really felt like it, because Keith still liked to see blonde hair, wild and in disarray, piled on a pillow beneath him, still liked bucking into a tight body, and grunting at the wetness of it. 

It was more than just art school. More than the cultivation of his talents. It was the discovery of himself but despite that, he was determined not to leave Watts behind. 

Keith loved Watts. Watts was his better half, even if she would never believe it, and while Peter sometimes wouldn't understand it, he still pretended to. That was good enough for Keith. 

Keith was self aware enough to understand that a part of him was jealous of Amanda Jones. But it was a part of him that he kept buried away, because really, the emergence of Amanda Jones at this point in his life really just brought way too much baggage with it. His dream girl, perfect in every way, and thoroughly flawed, was the girl he gave up for the girl of his dreams, who he gave up for the boy he never knew he wanted, and putting them in the same room added up to something that came close to a major headache. 

Sometimes he liked her, sometimes he hated her. It was complicated and confusing, and quite frankly, he had had enough with complicated and confusing the moment he started fucking Peter. 

Maybe Watts needed someone. It was fair to her, that she had a friend. 

But Amanda Jones wasn't the friend Watts needed. 

He was scared to death that time would prove him right about that, because Watts was getting attached, and Peter even went so far as to call it a crush. 

Still, Watts wasn't gay, that much he knew, and he had that to comfort him the morning of his biweekly lunch with Watts. 

He got into town early, because this time it was lunch with the folks. Watts had to be warned. His best friend understood, but even she got irritated at playing the girlfriend to the closet gay art guy. 

He still had a hard time believing that was really him. 

Pulling in front of Watts house, Keith figured on a morning pretty much like any other. He heard the music blasting before he even got to the porch, and it made him smile. Keith never bothered to knock. Watts' family was never on the attentive side, if they were even home. Sometimes he actually liked that about her house. It came with a certain degree of freedom, and during the early days of their short-lived romance, provided with a decent place for necking. 

He never announced himself. Usually, he strode into her room and discovered her on the drums, lit up in a sheen of sweat, beautiful and amazing. Today, he pushed into her room, took off his glasses, and discovered her with her tongue in Amanda Jones’ mouth. 

For a moment, a very stupid moment, Keith stood there, frozen with a plastic smile on his face, his good morning hello dying in his throat, ability to breathe temporarily halted in his sudden shock. 

"Oh, crap!" Amanda said, pulling away from Watts to cover her mouth, as if by wiping off Watts' kisses she could erase what happened. 

Watts only looked annoyed, a half smile on her face as she held onto Amanda's waist with one hand, hard gaze boring into Keith's stunned face. 

"You're early." 

"You're busy," Keith replied, eyes on the very flushed Amanda Jones, who was pulling on her jacket and running fingers through her mussed hair. 

"You could say that," Watts drawled, eyes roving back to Amanda, quirking an eyebrow. "You okay?" 

"I um..." Amanda was still beet red, and Keith wanted to kill her for no reason at all, when she laughed a little. "It's just... so much for keeping this a secret from Keith." 

"Yeah..." Watts agreed, and Keith still couldn't quite move. His palm was frozen on the doorknob, and his mind was stuck between reliving the last minute and a half, and trying desperately to forget he had ever seen it. "You better go." 

"Yeah..." He blinked, watching as Amanda and Watts stared at each other, like they were figuring out how this was going to work, before Amanda just squeezed her wrist. "I'll see you later,' she settled for, and ducked her head around Keith. "Keith," she said politely, avoiding his eyes. 

He wasn't sure what to do, now that he was left alone with Watts. She looked flushed and beautiful, an odd expression coloring her features, as she pulled on her fringe leather gloves and stared at him. 

"So you gonna say something or you gonna gape at me like a fish all day?" 

He blinked, shuffling, palm falling from the doorknob. "What do you want me to say?" he finally settled for, running fingers through his bangs. 

"Nothing, really," she said shortly, "I mean, that's what I’m hoping for." 

He sucked in his breath, awkward as she pulled on her boots. "Were you planning on telling me about this?" 

She gave him an odd look. "Eventually," she managed. "It's just... it's been a crazy week, you know?" 

"Sure." 

"Were you this scared?" she asked. Keith didn't know what she meant, until he looked into her eyes and discovered that they were shining brilliantly, something so fragile about Watts right then that he was suddenly scared she would break. "When it happened?" 

He pushed forward from the door, voice tight and dingy. "When what happened?" 

"With Peter," she managed, staring down at her shoes, tugging hard at her shoelaces, short, erratic jerks. "I mean when you... when you... you know-" 

Maybe he did know. Maybe he didn't. He wasn't sure he knew this Watts or what she was feeling. It was a very, very scary thing. 

"Watts..." 

"I think I'm in love with her," she interrupted, in a small voice. She blinked, shook her head and suddenly laughed, an almost bitter tinge to it. "Isn't that some ironic shit? I mean, all these years, hating Amanda Jones, and maybe all it was was some insane sexual tension or something-" 

"Wait... you... you LOVE her?" It was Keith's turn for an odd, weird chuckle. "Are you sure? Are you sure this isn't some sort of ... backlash-" 

"What? Like I got your gay cooties?" Watts gave him a narrowed glare. "I'm really not that susceptible to peer pressure, Keith." 

"That's not what I meant." 

"What do you mean?" 

He didn't know what to say now. He wasn't even sure about what he was feeling, but suddenly Keith felt very, very alone, and he had no idea why. 

"I just... does she... you know... how did she... when did she... Amanda Jones?!" 

Her look was narrowed, even, before she broke out into a disbelieving snort. "Believe me, man. No one's more surprised than me." He sat there, dumbly, until Watts suddenly shifted. "Shit! We're gonna be late for your parents-" 

Poking him, she stood, running for her shirt, currently splayed across her cymbals. It made a clattering sound when she pulled it off, sniffing it to make sure it was okay. 

His parents. His feet felt like lead. 

"We should tell them about you moving up," he said mechanically. 

Watts slowed, movements hindered, before she faced him. "Not sure when I'm going up, Keith." 

"What?" 

She looked hesitant. "I um... Amanda's workin' at the bank and..." 

"You're staying for her." 

"Maybe." 

He couldn't move, glancing at her drums, and her half open suitcase. "Has she told you she loves you?" 

Watts froze in mid-shrug, arm stuck in her sleeve. "Dude, don't be so gay. It's been a week." 

A week and Watts wasn't moving up with him, and was in love with Amanda Jones. 

"Oh, dude? Please don't... you know - I mean you can tell Peter, but... we're not really... Amanda and I- you know." She patted him on the shoulder, walking out of her room. "Let's go." 

Keith stayed in the room a moment longer, picking up a smooth wooden drumstick and slamming at the cymbal, letting the sound rattle his brain. 

\--

He wasn’t sure if the rules applied, but if they did, Keith was pretty damned certain that Watts had broken some sort of law that applied to dating an ex. 

Not that Amanda really was an ex. And not that Keith wasn’t gay now, or anything. But still, there was something incredibly wrong about all of this. 

When he came out to Watts, he had been a broken person, begging her forgiveness and holding her tightly in his arms, terribly afraid of losing her to whatever it was that had taken over him. 

Watts, however, sat by his side and played her part, laughing and talking with his parents, discussing her prospects for art school. She wore a hint of eye shadow and a darker shade of lip gloss, and his sister complimented her on her haircut. His sister, who once called his girlfriend the butchiest girl in San Pedro. 

This wasn’t Watts, who sat by him. 

He wasn’t sure who this was, but he knew she had been poisoned by Amanda Jones. 

“Don’t look so shocked,” she told him, in a second they were alone, a bemused smile lilting across her features. “I can be a girl… sometimes,” she added, like it was an afterthought. 

“Did Amanda do that?” he murmured, running a finger along her cheek. 

The glance she gave him was strange, until she seemed to realize what he was talking about, and laughed, pushing his hand away. “We were just fucking around. But I don’t know – I kinda like it.” Poising, she winked, before she flushed and laughed awkwardly. “I’m acting like a freak, aren’t I?” 

“No,” he said after a beat. “You’re acting… happy.” 

The realization was a painful one, and Keith wasn’t sure why. He was worried now, had a tight ache in his chest, and whenever Watts laughed or smiled, he was reminded with a pain that it wasn’t because of something he did, or said. 

Watts was going to have to move on eventually, and he knew that Watts deserved to be happy. 

His dad caught him on the tail end of the brunch, pushing another pamphlet into his face, talking about it not being too late to transfer. 

He walked away from him without saying a word.

\--

He found Peter getting rammed in the ass by a guy in his painting class. 

There wasn’t a prettier way to describe it. Peter had that stoned, glazed look in his eyes, and when Keith slammed the door, he merely looked up, smiling, grunting as the guy shoved forward again. 

Flinging his jacket on the chair, he glared. “Do you mind finishing up? I want my room back.” 

“Who the hell is this guy?” Paint guy asked, and already on edge, it didn’t take much for Keith to come forward. 

“I’m the boyfriend of the guy you’re fucking,” he snapped, shoving at him hard, toppling the guy back on his naked ass. “You mind getting the fuck out of here?” 

“Keith!” 

“Shut up,” he snapped, walking around the sofa, and moving fast. The guy was skinny, like Peter, and while Keith was not violent by nature, he was damned good at being passive/aggressive. Today, there was only so much shit he could take. 

Paint guy was scrambling back, and the only thing that saved him was hands wrapping suddenly around Keith’s chest, a lean body pressed against him, chin rough with stubble sliding against his ear, mouth fluttering on his lobe. “Relax,” Peter whispered, “Calm down, babe. He’s out of here-“ 

It was startling, almost frightening, to find himself sweaty, heaving his breath in and out, hot and angry, and hands balled into fists. 

He stayed put, dark eyes frozen on the scrambling naked paint guy, held in place by Peter, as they both watched the guy go. 

When the door slammed, Keith broke free. “Get off of me,” he snapped, turning away from his naked boyfriend. 

Pulling off his shirt with a yank, he reached the minifridge, found a soda. 

“Something wrong?” 

Peter really had some fucking nerve. 

“I find you here with another guy, and you have to ask if something’s wrong?” 

Peter only drolly quirked and eyebrow, flopping onto the bed and staring at him. “You weren’t home, and I didn’t want to wait-“ 

“Fuck you,” Keith murmured, holding the icy can against his skin, feeling the stark cold, wetness condensing against his forehead. 

“They never mean anything.” 

“Just shut up,” he snapped, “I’m not in the mood.” 

Peter studied him, expression shifting slightly, almost amused. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” 

Keith only glared, before Peter grinned that smug, cat ate the canary grin, and it was impossible to be mad at him anymore. 

With a sigh, he walked over to his canvas, studied the portrait half painted there. 

It was new – a blend of Watts and Peter, a study of contrast of beauty. 

Sliding a finger over the dried paint, he sighed. “I went to see Watts this morning.” 

“Yes, I remembered.” Peter, still naked, took his guitar in his lap, strummed an impromptu tune. “How was Brunch with the Beard?” 

Eyes on his painting, he traced the curve of Watts’ mouth. “I found her kissing Amanda Jones.” There was no sound at first. When he turned, he noted Peter with a startled expression, chuckling to himself. 

“Took them long enough.” 

“Amanda Jones isn’t gay.” 

“Neither is Watts! Neither are you!” Peter grinned, took the moment to strum heartily. “No one’s gay anymore. Everyone’s just experimenting!” 

Keith sighed, turning away. 

“Watts is a big girl, Keith,” Peter said, “If she wants to fuck the lovely and unattainable Miss Amanda Jones, more power to her.” 

“She thinks she’s in love with her,” Keith snapped, slamming his brush down on the easel, nearly toppling the canvas with the force. 

Peter’s smirk froze, before he shrugged, sliding his long fingers down his fret. “So you are jealous,” he mumbled around the pick he put into his mouth. “Just not of me.” 

A prickle of irritation slid over him, and Keith shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” 

“Oh, really?” Peter looked up from the guitar. “Because you’ve got a greenish tint all over you.” 

Keith took another drink, tossing the empty soda can to the trash can and missing. 

“She was going to find someone eventually, Keith.” He didn’t reply, instead focused on his painting, with twin pairs of blue eyes and shaggy blonde manes. 

When Peter’s hand slipped around his neck, he closed his eyes, felt a shudder go through him as lips caressed his jaw, teeth nipped at his skin.

It was what he needed, and he took it, swiveling in Peter’s arms and kissing him hungrily. 

In another minute his pants were down, and he was thrusting, grinding against Peter’s cock, sucking hard on Peter’s tongue. 

When he opened his eyes and saw Amanda Jones under him, he growled and pumped harder, until the red hair dissolved and there was blonde hair again, like it should have been. 

He was rougher than usual, but it didn’t matter. He knew that Peter liked it. 

\-- 

“You should invite them up here for the weekend.” 

Fingers were tickling his navel, and half-asleep, Keith slapped at it weakly, murmuring against his pillow. “Stop it.” 

“They’ll love it. A chance to be themselves. A coming out party-“ 

“Drop it,” he whispered, hand dropping on top of Peter’s roaming one, stilling it.

“You owe it to Watts to let her be herself,” he heard in his ear, like his own personal devil perched on his shoulder. “She’s done the same for you.” 

He hated Peter, for a moment. 

\-- 

Amanda Jones never changed. 

She still wore her hair in a perfect shag, wore designer lenses and smiled through an immaculately put together face.

His eyes lingered on her form, until Watts barreled into his arms, and his tense frame relaxed as he wrapped palms around her waist, bringing her in for a close hug. 

“God, you’ve got to cut your hair,” she laughed, raking fingernails through his bangs. “You’re looking more and more like a hippy every day.” 

“He’s an art fag,” Peter drawled, sucking on a cigarette, a twinkle in his eye. “He’s got to look the part.” 

It was a small thrill, to see that Amanda still looked uncomfortable, hands in her pockets, watching the scene with clear wariness. 

Until Peter gave her a grin and a smile, and her own mouth pulled up reluctantly, stepping into his arms and planting a kiss on his cheek. 

“I hear you’ve joined our lovely ranks,” Peter whispered, chucking her chin. 

Amanda swiveled eyes to him, to Watts, smile frozen for a second, before she sighed and shrugged. “You’re going to tease me about this for a while, aren’t you?” 

He wasn’t aware how stiff Watts was until Amanda said those words, and he felt her relax in his arms, pushing him away with a smile to squeeze Amanda’s forearm, lost in conversation with Peter, always touching Amanda Jones. 

When Amanda caught him staring, he looked away. 

\-- 

“They’re in love.” 

For Peter, it was an amusing revelation, a joke, fingers positioned over the frets of his guitar, eyes on Amanda and Watts, sitting together, Watts whispering in Amanda’s ear as Amanda tried desperately to look like she fit in. 

“The head cheerleader and the class misfit,” Peter continued, smirk dancing on his lips. “It’s like Pretty in Pink.” 

Keith didn’t respond. Taking a long drink from his bottle, he studied them both, as Watts’ fingers intertwined with Amanda’s and the other girl curled their hands together, almost possessive in the midst of the art party. 

“Watts is in love,” he finally corrected, breathing against the rim of the bottle. “I don’t know about Amanda Jones.” 

Peter gave him an odd look, and Keith ignored it. 

“For a man who became one of her many admirers,” Peter added, “You’re surprisingly hostile. And absolutely no fun to be around.” 

So he left him, heading toward the skinny stick of a boy he had fucked the week before.

Keith was surprised to find he didn’t care much.

\-- 

“Hey!” She found him on the stairwell, dangerously close to being drunk and sulking by himself. “Was wondering where you went.” 

Watts was glowing, skin radiating in the moonlight that flickered in from the window. When she settled down beside him, she smelled like grease and Amanda Jones. 

“Where’s your girlfriend?” 

Watts shifted, shot him an odd look and shook her head. “Don’t call her that,” she said automatically. “I don’t know what she is, but… I don’t think either of us are ready for that.” 

He cast her a narrowed glance. “You looked pretty cuddly from where I was sitting.” 

Watts’s fingers rubbed against her jeans, digits moving fast, like even when she was sitting still, she couldn’t keep some part of her from moving. “It’s… weird. I mean, I know I’ve been pretty out there my whole life? But this Amanda thing… I mean… this time last year? Kinda hated her.” 

“And now you kinda love her,” he said easily. 

She shifted her eyes at him, blowing her breath out only to take another one. “I was just thinking… Cause… you know, Amanda’s going back up to SC in a couple weeks, and…” 

“And then it’s over?” 

She blinked, looked at him with naked worry in her eyes. “We haven’t talked about it. We haven’t really talked about much. But I was thinking… you know… cause I was gonna move up here to be with you back when we were together, but… I could just as easily-“ 

A chill splintered down his spine. “You want to move up there?” 

She took in a haggard breath. “It’s a stupid idea.” 

“Yeah,” he said immediately. “It’s very stupid.” 

She blinked, thrown by the anger in his tone. “Excuse me?” 

“Watts – you have a scholarship. You have a scholarship and you’re going to throw it away for this?” 

Her stare only got wider; then it got cold. “What the hell does that mean?” 

“You know what it means! This isn’t real for her! You don’t belong in that world. What, you think you’ll go up there, and she’ll take you in your leather jacket and tomboy hair and just start introducing you as her girlfriend? When this summer’s over she’s going back to her frat parties and sorority sisters and you’ll just be the mistake she wished she could forget.” 

The second those words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. Keith had always been a mellow guy, but he knew how to lose his temper. 

He had never lost it with Watts. 

She stared at him, as if struck, and when he tried to come forward, tried to apologize, she shoved his hands away. 

“Fuck you,” she managed. “All right? Fuck you.” 

“Watts-“ 

“You don’t think I know that?” she managed, nearly spitting in her emotion. “Just like I know what’ll happen when you bring your little boyfriend home? She’ll leave, just like you, just like everyone else, but for ONCE, I didn’t care.” Rubbing fiercely at her neck, she shook her head. “You’re not my boyfriend anymore. Butt out.” 

She turned on her heel, stalked away before he even got a chance to try again. 

\-- 

“Are you having such a conniption about this because it’s Watts or because it’s Amanda Jones?” 

Peter was high again, finger wrapped around a roach, filling the air with the stench of marijuana. 

He had no patience for this. Keith didn't look at Peter, lolling on the bed, instead focused on unbuttoning his shirt, kicking off his shoes.

"What the hell are you talking about?" 

"I was in here with the lovely Amanda, when your little blonde stormed inside, rambling on and on about what an asshole you were. Disrupted the party." 

Keith's eyes closed, and he steadied himself with a deep breath. 

"For someone who has another boyfriend, you're awfully invested in your ex-girlfriends." 

Keith froze, eyes narrowed, turning at staring down Peter. "I've never said shit to you when I come home to find another guy's dick in your ass." 

"They don't mean anything, they never have." Peter was matter-of-fact, dry in his stoned bliss. "With you, Keith, I find myself constantly competing with those of the feminine persuasion." 

"You expect me to just take what I had for Watts and just throw it away? Turn it off? I'm worried about her, and it's got nothing to do with you." 

"Exactly." Keith took him in, Peter making his point with a smirk and a smile, before he straightened and tipped the ashes of his joint onto the floor. "Enough. Come here, suck on this, and we'll talk about this tomorrow. Or never at all. I believe in letting things fester." 

Keith picked up his brushes, eyes on his canvas. "I don't feel like getting high tonight. And you do that too much." 

"Pardon?" 

"Can you stay sober for like, a day?" 

Peter didn't say anything, not for a full minute, and when Keith looked up from his canvas, he was still as a stone. 

"Get out," Peter said methodically. 

Keith had never seen him more serious. 

\-- 

"You're on everyone's shit list tonight, aren't you?" 

Amanda Jones was next in line, it seemed. 

She found him on the corner, shivering in the cold. When she sat down next to him, she deposited a sweater in his palms. 

"Thanks," he said gruffly. 

Amanda rubbed fingers over her letterman's jacket - more than likely a remnant of Hardy, burying deeper inside of it, as she took in the street around them: the faraway shouts of the party, the sounds of cars and people. 

"It's a modern day Bohemian revolution," she said, small smirk floating on her face. "No wonder you and Watts feel at home here." 

He stared at his paint stained fingers. 

"I saw your canvas, in your room," she added. "It's beautiful. I always think it's the hardest, to capture the essence of someone. It's in their eyes." When he glanced at her questioningly, she smiled. "After our date, if that's what you can call it, I took an interest in art. You're good - you could be better." 

He snorted, a laugh torn out of his throat before he could help himself, and she grinned back, arms crossed over her legs. 

"You don't like me, do you?" she said finally. 

She was being honest, direct, and it was how he remembered her. As good as Amanda Jones had been at playing the political games in high school, when she was herself, she was always this way. 

It gave him something to cling to. 

"I don't like what you're doing to Watts," he answered frankly. 

She took that in, a small nod. "Are you afraid of losing her?" He swallowed, bitterly laughing. "Because you never could-"

"No." His snap stopped her mid sentence. She eyed him.

"I'm not trying to take her from you, Keith." 

He shuddered, but not from the cold. Fingers tensed and mashed together, until his bones were bruised from his tension. "You have no intention of taking responsibility for Watts at all." 

Her face was unreadable, until her mouth quirked and she glanced away, jaw tightening. "I don't know what you're getting at," she managed, "But Watts can take of herself. What happened between her and I really isn't any of your business-" 

"Do you love her?" 

She blinked, taken aback by the question. In her hesitation, she said everything. 

Lunging forward, he kissed her, planting his lips on hers in an absurd mimic of their first kiss, what seemed ages ago. 

She responded to it, for just a second, and suddenly she broke away, chasing it with a stinging slap across his cheek, sending sparks into his eyes, and nearly barreling him over. 

"Asshole," she hissed, moving to her feet, heading back toward the dorm. 

"You've got no commitment to Watts," he snapped, watching her form falter. "She's planning on dropping her scholarship for you - moving to SC for you. What are you gonna do when the little tomboy shows up at your sorority house? Are you gonna take her in, show her the sights, let her set up house with you? Or are you going to break her heart - leave her because you never loved her?" 

Keith kicked at the concrete, turning away.

\-- 

"I'm leaving you." 

They were the first words he heard, when he opened his eyes and discovered Peter, sucking on a cigarette, staring at him with surprisingly naked eyes. 

Keith rubbed at his forehead, pulling off blankets, trying to make the words register. 

"What?" 

"I'm leaving you," Peter said again. "We're breaking up. The sex used to mean something, and it doesn't. Not anymore. I'm leaving you." 

Keith stared at him, taking in the beautiful blonde features, the tired eyes. 

"Okay," he said frankly.

Peter regarded him, studying the intention in his gaze, before he nodded shortly, straightening up and slapping Keith's ass. "Okay, then." 

Keith shook the cobwebs from his head, swinging his feet over the bed, grabbing at the shirt Peter tossed on his lap. 

"You girlfriend left," Peter announced. "She and Amanda Jones said their goodbyes last night. No one wanted to say goodbye to you. You were a bit of an ass, you know." 

"We still roommates?" 

"Of course," Peter said drolly, now invested in a magazine. "You're one of the few men around here that can keep a place clean." 

Keith snorted, reaching for his shoes. "I'll be back." 

"I'll be fucking someone when you do," Peter responded, not taking his eyes off his magazine. 

For some inane reason, the statement spilt warmth in Keith's chest. He caught his old boyfriend by surprise with a tender kiss, running fingers across Peter's beautiful features, moving away. 

"You need help," he announced, inspecting his brushes and throwing them back into the pail of water. 

Peter held his magazine carefully, peering over the top. "Will you be going back to Watts, then?" 

Keith froze in the doorway, contemplating the thought. He only smiled, opening the door and closing it behind him. 

\-- 

Watts never looked as beautiful as she did when she was playing her drums. 

For the longest time, Keith had been the only one privy to her stomp sessions, watching her glisten with sweat as she beat the hell out of them, knocking on the world and all it had dealt her, and turning it into something rhythmic, beautiful. 

Standing in her doorway now, he wondered how many times Amanda had seen this. 

Oddly, he wondered if this is what changed things - seeing Watts like this. 

He closed the door, the jolt alerting Watts to his presence, breaking her beat, her eyes flying open to register him. 

He felt naked, awkward. 

"Hi." 

She stared at him, taking him in before she sniffed, pushing out of her chair and taking the towel he offered. 

"You were right," she said suddenly, in a tone that told him it was simple resignation, not an apology. She wasn't done being mad at him, not yet. 

"Right about what?" he said, shoving hands into his pockets. 

"Me and Amanda," she said after a moment, fingers balling the towel against her chest, eyes fluttering closed for a minute. "We broke up." 

He didn't know what to say to that. Rubbing at his chest, he wondered at the numbness in it, the inability to feel one way or another. He wasn't even sure of what he SHOULD have felt at that. 

What changed that was the look on Watts' face. 

"Watts," he breathed, coming forward. "I'm sorry-" 

She shrugged, laughing in what he was sure she wanted to be careless, lighthearted. Instead, the sound nearly broke his heart. "I did it," she said. "I mean... she started it but I finished it. Told her it was just a summer fling. Wasn't real. Didn't mean anything cause it sure as shit wasn't love, and it wasn't like it had a future, you know?" She clutched at her towel, kneading into it. "Didn't expect her to agree so fast, though." 

The tears were stained into her eyes, and when he gently, awkwardly, placed his arms on her shoulders, she didn't fight it, folding into his chest, burying her face into his shirt, shuddering. 

"FUCK," she snapped, jerking her head, trying to shake her emotion off. "FUCKING AMANDA JONES!" She laughed angrily, flinging the towel as she pushed away from him. "I mean, I KNEW this about her! I knew it, and I still..." 

"Hey-" he stopped her, cupped her chin and stared deeply into her eyes. "I'm here," he whispered. "I didn't leave you. I couldn't leave you." 

Her eyes rimmed with tears, and without another word, she folded herself into his arms. When his mouth descended on hers, she kissed him hungrily, tears smearing onto his cheeks, soft and feminine and just Watts. 

It ended up on the bed, but it was never going to go further. She knew that. He knew that. Another kiss, soft and tender, and then she shuddered again, rested her head against his chest and held him tight around his middle, listening to his heartbeat. 

Keith held her close, and noticed that one of her diamond earrings, his diamond earrings, was missing. 

She never told him where she had lost it. 

\--


	4. Miss Amanda Jones

  


The night Watts and Amanda had their respective fights with Keith was the most intimate Amanda had ever encountered, and one she would never forget.

It was also the night that led to the morning where they had broken up. Because of that, just the thought brought a bittersweet twinge in her heart. 

Still, while many things about her summer faded away, Amanda Jones would never forget that night. 

She remembered her spirit, fragile and tense, held within only by her utter resolve, because while Keith was an asshole, he was also right. 

Amanda loved Watts, but the very thought of Watts giving up her scholarship, landing on her doorstep at USC, facing her friends and her frat boys... it did something. It frightened her. 

She knew what was going to happen before it did, and it left her nearly broken, when Watts found her, leaning in the doorway of the dorm, arms crossed, eyes closed. 

"What's up?" 

Feminine fingers curled into hers, a warm, slender body seeped warmth in her side, and Amanda smiled ruefully, eyes shining brilliantly in the moonlight as she caressed her thumb against Watts’ palm. 

"Hi. Nothing. Well..." she smiled painfully. "Keith is an asshole." 

Watts' glance was surprised, but her girlfriend grinned, agreeing wholeheartedly. "He's being a major ass," she admitted. "Want me to kick his ass for you?" 

Amanda was in no mood for Watts' macho defense mechanism. She took her by surprise, she knew, when she simply just nestled her face into the crook of Watts' neck, breathing her in, slipping arms around her lover for an intense moment.

She never imagined holding another woman so intimately could feel so incredibly right. She had reasoned so many times that it shouldn't have fit as perfectly as it did, because men and women were made to complement each other, and women had breasts and softness that molded to a man's hardness. 

But Watts was soft and hard, and Amanda loved to hold her. She seemed to fit against her, and now, suddenly, she didn't want to let her go, because she knew - she just didn't fit. 

Surprised, Watts wrapped her arms around her, fingertips massaging lightly into her red tresses, lips brushing against her neck. "You okay?" she asked, and Amanda could feel her heart thumping against her, rhythmic and in the beat, so like Watts. 

"You'll fit in here," Amanda said, head rising, breath rushing in and smile widening painfully. "You belong here." 

Watts seemed taken aback by that statement. Her eyes were dark, impossible to read in the barely there light of the fading moonlight. 

"Yeah," she said after a moment. "Never really felt I belonged anywhere." 

"Me neither," Amanda confessed. "I never felt like any place was really... I never felt like I fit..." she swallowed, took in a breath. _Until I was with you_ , she added silently, because it was something she could never say to Watts, could barely even admit to herself. 

Watts' expression unreadable, Amanda's smile stiffened painfully, as she thumbed along Watts' lush lips, her beautiful cheekbones. 

She kissed her, in that dark hallway, opening her mouth against Watts, feasting on her lover's lips hungrily, desperately. 

She was madly in love with Watts, she belonged with Watts. 

And she would have to end it tomorrow. 

She didn't want to break away. She wanted to find a room and undress Watts and cover every inch of her with her lips, brand every curve with her mouth, her lips, her words, before Watts went on her way and left her behind. 

"Let's go," she breathed against her lips, sliding down to tangle fingers, pulling away to lead Watts away, when she was stopped short by a tug. 

"Wait." Amanda blinked, ready to argue when Watts dropped her grip, until she saw what she was doing. Watts was struggling with her left ear, limbs shaking, and she shook her head, heart in her throat when she realized what it was Watts was doing. 

"Watts-" 

A small diamond earring was placed into her palm. 

"It was meant for you," Watts whispered. "They were always meant for you," Watts closed her palm around it. "You have to take one." 

She was overwhelmed. It was a simple piece of jewelry, but somehow, nothing mattered more than that simple diamond earring. 

Watts smiled, eyes shining brilliantly, and suddenly plucked the earring out of her palm, and raised it to her ear instead. "Come on-" 

It was melodramatic, and ridiculously romantic, and Amanda was afraid she could start sobbing. 

She took her hoops out, dropped them and didn't care where they fell, and in their place, she placed one diamond earring. 

With erratic breath and a shaky smile, she slipped her long bangs behind her ear, displaying it for Watts.

"How does it look?" 

Watts was silent, still, until she smiled back. "You look beautiful wearing my future." 

\-- 

Amanda Jones wasn't sure why she took the piece. She knew why she was chosen for it. Art had become an avid interest, and her editor at the Los Angeles Times had always given her special preference. 

He said it was because she wrote good stories and had a way with human interest, but she was more than suspicious that it had more to do with her breasts. 

Still, as a junior reporter who hadn't even gotten her own byline yet, Amanda Jones had a long way to go, and an in was an in. 

Keith's name as the subject of the piece was more than good reason to turn it down. She supposed it was her own weakness that resulted in her setting up the interview through his dealer. 

Her mother had been horrified when she found out her daughter had pierced another hole in her left ear, fitted it with a diamond earring and never took it out. 

Maybe seeing Keith again would finally help her understand how to remove it. 

The MOCA breakout artist of the Year had finally gotten that haircut that Watts had always teased him about. He wore a tight black shirt and well-fitting denim jeans, drinking coffee from a Starbucks cup, looking contemporary and modern and poised for his star. 

"Keith," she managed, smile widening when he whirled, eyes widening, fumbling his coffee and spilling it all over his jeans. "Oh, God-" she managed. "Let me help you with -" 

"FUCK," he spat, reaching for some flimsy paper napkins, wiping fast. "Shit -" 

"Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you-" 

"Shit-" he continued, rubbing until the paper thin napkins dissolved in his hands, forcing him to give up, tossing the Starbucks cup away. "Fuck it," he said, staring down at the pants. "At least it's not paint this time." With that, he looked up. "Amanda Jones." 

She felt absurdly like curtsying. "Keith," she returned, and when he just kept staring, she waved her little notebook. "I set up the interview." 

"You’re a reporter for the Times?" 

"Junior Reporter," she corrected. "In the Calendar department. I'm specializing in the Arts. Current Events. Social engagements." She smiled. "It's my forte." 

He looked slightly displeased. "My interview was passed off to a junior reporter?" 

"Well, the paper ran across a particular piece of yours that bore an incredible likeness to me," she managed, smile strained. "And they ran with it. Care to sit?" 

He shrugged, and she sat, arms crossed, pulling out her small tape recorder, organizing her notes. She was absurdly aware of his eyes on her, and it didn't do much to help things. Already flushed, Amanda Jones wasn't sure this had been a good idea. 

It was too soon. That much was apparent by the stilted silence. The last time she had seen Keith had not been pleasant. 

"So um... I didn't warn you, for obvious reasons," she said, slightly sweaty, glancing up and managing a small smile. "I want you to be comfortable, so if... this... is a problem? Just let me know. I can arrange for another reporter to take this." 

He regarded her, stared her down, but and his eyes suddenly shifted. She didn't realize he was looking at her earring until he smiled. She carefully patted down her hair, covering it from sight. 

"No," he said easily. "Not at all. This is fine." He eased back in his chair, smiled wider. "After all, we're professionals. What's past is forgotten." 

It took every ounce of her self control not to wince at that. "Right. So, we should get started then." 

"Let's." 

"Congratulations," she began, tapping at the notebook with her pen. "First of all. What you've achieved is an amazing honor." 

He smiled. "I like to think so. We're having a party tonight. In my honor." 

He had always been a smug little bastard. "That's great!" she said mechanically. "Now, umm... the first question, I guess-" 

"Why don't you come?" he said smoothly. "You can be my date." 

She blinked. "Excuse me?" 

"Come to the party!" He smiled. "I'm absurdly uncomfortable in these jeans, and frankly, you look like you could use a good party." 

"I ... I have a deadline-" 

"So, come to the party and we'll do the interview then." He smiled. "I don't have a date, and if I remember correctly, you clean up very nicely." 

It was an entirely inappropriate remark, but she supposed it was fair, considering what she blurted out next. "You're still gay, right?" 

He only smiled, taking her pen and her notebook, scrawling quickly. "Dress up. Be there at nine. And bring your recorder." He stood, grimacing at the moistness of his jeans. "Good to see you again, Amanda Jones." 

"Can you please not call me by my full name?" she asked irately. "It's not a title." 

He tapped at the engagement ring on her finger. "Nice diamond, by the way. Be there." 

\--

She met Trevor in her junior year. He was a Kappa, and a genuinely nice guy. Sweet and sensitive, with shaggy blonde hair and a penchant for the homeless, he was as different from Hardy as Amanda could get. 

He presented her with a ring as a graduation gift. They had been engaged for nearly a year. 

The fact was, Keith had her thoroughly confused, and frightened nearly out of her mind. She knew exactly where he stood on her history with Watts, and even if it wasn't mentioned, it had to have been on his mind just as much as it had been in hers. 

If she didn't have a deadline to make, she would have contemplated calling the whole thing off right then and there. 

Instead, she showed up, hair swept into a delicate bun, black cocktail dress purposely hugging her curves, clutch held in place underneath her arm, and once again faced the art crowd of Los Angeles. 

She took in a breath, and wondered if she could remember any familiar faces. Keith's art crowd had been wild and reckless and free, and Amanda Jones had experienced it for one summer. Did they grow up? Did their kind ever grow up? 

She found herself looking for a splash of blonde, for a leather jacket, and the moment she realized what she was doing, she stopped herself, plucking a glass of wine off a passing waiter, taking a gulp that nearly choked her to death. 

"Easy, darling," said a voice, hands sliding possessively around her middle, mouth brushing her ear. "Getting drunk at a party is hardly classy." 

She sputtered again, nearly dropping her drink when her heart jumped in her throat, and she whirled, beheld a man with an angelic face, who smiled deliciously. 

"PETER!" 

He grinned, pulling her in for a hug that she returned whole heartedly, suddenly trembling. 

"Oh, God," she breathed, ridiculously sentimental, pulling back to inspect his boyish face, run fingers through his long bangs. "You don't ever change, do you!" 

His grin was positively cheeky. "Men of tomorrow never need to change. We're just sitting around waiting for the world to catch up!" 

"You made it!" 

Almost embarrassed, Amanda pulled away, offering the approaching Keith a small smile. "Are you guys still..." 

"Oh, GOD, no." Keith chucked Peter on the shoulder, winking. "This guy is a boozer a drinker, and a detriment to society." 

"And the most interesting person you have at this party," Peter drawled. "Don't you forget it." 

Overwhelmed, Amanda suddenly couldn't speak. She only smiled, clutching onto her wine and her purse while Keith and Peter kept snarking at each other. 

It was strangely intoxicating. 

Keith was interrupted, and once again, she was left with Peter, dashing in his black slacks and white scarf. 

"It's good to see you Amanda Jones," he said easily.

"Don't call me that," she said, a sing song note removing the sting. 

Eyebrow arching, he studied her, palm closing over hers, to finger the engagement ring. "It IS still Miss Amanda Jones, isn't it?" 

"For another few months," she admitted, letting him look. There wasn’t a reason to feel weird. She wouldn't feel weird. What had happened that summer had been an unspoken memory, and it was over. Long over. 

It would be entirely unlike Peter not to bring it up. 

"So you've left us for the opposite sex," he murmured. "Can't say I'm not disappointed. We got an extra toaster when we got you." 

It wasn't something Amanda could joke about, and so she merely said nothing, staring into her wine glass, taking in a heady breath. "It's not for all of us, Peter." 

"Absolutely," he nodded, eyes on a far corner. "Love only appeals to a certain few." 

She looked where he was looking, and her heart sputtered, nearly stalled in her surprise. And she had been prepared for this. She knew Keith had his reasons, and it was why she wanted to come, because she still wore a diamond in her ear, and she needed the strength to wear only the one on her finger.

And yet, she still wasn't prepared to see Susan Watts. 

Or to see Susan looking directly at her. 

"Oh, God..." 

She only had eyes for Watts - a woman with long blonde hair wearing makeup and jewelry, holding the hand of a beautiful brunette, staring at her the way she was sure she was staring back.

"Good Lord, Amanda ," Peter remarked, plucking the wine glass from her fingertips and taking a sip. "You'd think you'd never seen that woman before." 

Keith, next to his friend Watts, said something in her ear, and suddenly they were coming, and Amanda Jones nearly fled - had she not been cemented to the floor. 

"Watts," he said generously, smiling widely. "You remember Amanda Jones, don't you?" 

Susan Watts wore a hard stare, eyes locked onto Amanda's face. Amanda's face flushed, suddenly looking away. 

"Can I speak with you?" she said coldly. 

Amanda blinked, taking in a deep breath. "Sure-" 

"I meant Keith," she snapped, interrupting, before hands wrapped her friend's elbow, and he was dragged away. 

"Oh, God," Amanda breathed, seconds after she was gone, turning away, and palming her face. "Oh, FUCK." 

Peter just cleared his throat. "Amanda, I don't believe you've met Bridgette." She blinked, swiveling back to find herself face to face with the brunette from before. "Susan's girlfriend." 

Bridgette only stared coolly. "I've heard a lot about you." 

Amanda head seemed ready to explode. Her heart pulsed within her, and weighted by a diamond in her ear and one on her finger, she had no choice.

"I'm sorry - you'll have to excuse me," she murmured, pushing past the new woman in Watts' life, leaving her behind in favor of her partner.

\--

"You had NO FUCKING RIGHT-" 

"It's been six years! I thought you'd want to see her!" 

"WHY?! WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANT TO SEE HER!" 

Amanda's resolve nearly crumbled right then and there, standing in the doorway, interrupting the argument with a small smile, a small wave. 

"Hi." 

Watts looked visibly affected, turning away with a sigh, and Keith only smiled sheepishly. "Well..." he said in the silence that followed. "I'm going to play my part as the host. Have fun!" 

"Fuck you," Watts called after him, and he only grimaced, offering Amanda a parting smile. 

"Good luck," he said, patting her on the shoulder as he passed. 

Watts had grown up. Her hair was longer, sweeping around her in tufts, from little bursts of wind. Framed in the silhouette of downtown around them, she looked as beautiful as Amanda had remembered her. 

"I'm sorry," she said haltingly. "I had no idea that-" 

"That what?" Watts interrupted. "That'd I'd be here? Keith's only my fucking best friend-" 

"It's been six years," Amanda said coolly. "A lot can change in six years." 

Watts turned her head. "Not that." 

She glanced down, studied the iron rods holding the balcony in place. "You're still drumming?" 

Susan looked guarded. "Yeah," she said, almost defiantly. "Regular gigs. Studio recordings, orchestra's... that sorta thing." 

Amanda nodded politely. "That's good." Watts was in no mood to humor her, and Amanda found herself surprisingly fragile. "You look great, Watts." 

Watts smiled, this bittersweet grin that told Amanda she knew the game, and found it silly. "Yeah," she said, patronizingly. "You look good, too, Amanda. Wanna tell me why the fuck you're here?" 

Amanda nearly winced, ignored a curious ache in her chest, and came forward, eyes clouding with stinging moisture she wouldn't let Watts see. "Yeah. I um... there's something I wanted to give you." 

Carefully, she pulled an earring from her ear, until a diamond glistened in her palm. Not daring to face Watts with it, just yet, she gasped a bit, watching it twinkle in the moonlight. 

"I should have given it to you that morning," she said, licking her lips when they went dry. "I know that, but I didn't really have the strength..." She looked up, discovered Watts with an unreadable expression painted across her features. "I think it's fair that you should have it back." 

Watts just stared at it, rubbed awkwardly at her ear, and when Amanda saw the matching ring, she nearly lost control. 

"Oh, God..." she whispered. "Susan-"

"Keep it," Watts muttered, stepping back, away from her. "Allright? It's.... silly to take it back now, just... just keep it." 

Watts stepped around her, hand brushing her accidentally, and in that touch, Amanda nearly came undone. 

"I miss you," she blurted, eyes opening to sear Watts with her gaze, shining tears pooling, mascara be damned. She whirled, found with a burst of hope that Watts had stopped, faltering in the doorway. "I just... I really miss you. Can't we be friends? Just start over, and be friends again?" She took in a shuddering breath, trying to find air when it was nearly impossible to breathe. "I mean, I know it was only a summer, but you were my best friend and-" 

"No." Watts glanced back, eyes dark and hard, small bitter smile dancing on her lips. "We can't be friends, Amanda." 

She swallowed, hands going on her hips, trying to control her heartbreak. "Why?" 

"Because." Watts turned, came forward, step by step, until she was touching her again, and suddenly Amanda was eighteen again, staring into a face that was all wrong and entirely too right. 

Shivering now, she drank in the sight of Watts, reveled in the feel of Watts' fingers entwined in hers, closed her eyes when Watts' breath mingled with hers. 

Her heart was pounding, her body was shaking, and this feeling, oh, GOD - she had missed THIS FEELING. 

Suddenly, she was cold, Watts was a foot away, and she was fingering her engagement ring. 

"That's why we can't ever be friends," Susan said, unaffected, and Amanda wanted to collapse, blinking away her tears. "Nice ring, by the way." 

Amanda shook her head. "You dumped me." 

"I only did what you would have done," Watts said sharply. "I just did it first. We never had a future. It's too late for the past." Susan backed away, smile trembling crookedly. "I'll see you again in another six years." 

She stayed on the balcony, gripped against the railing, trying to bring herself back under control. 

"I'm sorry," Keith said, coming out of the shadows, hands in his pockets. "I didn't think she was over you. She loved you. I wanted to make it right." 

Amanda pursed her lips, stared up at the night sky, and pushed off the railing. "Me too," she said, shrugging. "It's over." 

She kissed him, a gentle sweep across his lips, and when she pulled away, she had pressed an earring into his palm. "Make sure she gets this." 

He had a strange look on his face, but she didn't dwell on it. 

Instead she took her clutch, wiped her eyes, and pasted a smile on her face, stepping back into the party, praying she'd make it through the floor and back to Trevor without collapsing from the emotion. 

\--


	5. Peter Minion.

  


Peter got sick six years after they graduated. 

Well, that was when he told them he was sick. When he was too sick to hide it anymore. 

"There was something in your damned advice," he told Keith, a smirk on his face because he didn't know how to show anything else. "Even if I never wanted to hear it." 

Watts' life was a consistent whirlwind, and it got more clouded with hospital visits, sitting by Keith at four in the morning, watching Peter, gaunt and way too skinny, asleep with tubes up his nose. 

"Don't look so sorry for me," he said, almost disgusted with them, the night they found out. "I've lived my with no regrets, exactly the way I wanted to. It was only a matter of time before it caught up with me. Otherwise it would just be unfair. I was meant to live an extraordinary life - and I was meant to die young." 

He did die young. Entirely too young, and even in death, he refused to let them mourn him.

His guitar was placed in his casket with him, and his band's one hit was blasted on the speakers, this David Bowie wannabe glam rock thing that had always made her laugh when she heard it.

There were a lot of people at the funeral. It was a zoo, but it didn't surprise Susan Watts, when she looked around and surveyed the bohemian revolution that seemed to follow Peter wherever he went. 

It was fitting somehow. 

A few minutes before the service ended, Susan found her way outside, stepping onto the cement staircase of Forest Lawn, taking in a deep breath, closing her eyes. 

"Excuse me. You wouldn't happen to have a light, would you?" 

Her brief moment was respite was shattered, when she turned and found Amanda Jones standing right in front of her. 

Her words got stuck in her throat, and in those seconds, she found herself cataloguing the differences - shorter hair, wrinkles around the corner of her eyes- before she found her voice. 

"No, I quit years ago," she managed. 

Amanda looked startled. Smoothing back one bang, she seemed awkward, out of place, as she sheepishly waved the little stick in her hands. "You're a better woman than me." Shrugging, she thrust it back in her pocket, studying her more intently now, as if it she wasn't sure. "Watts? I didn't... I didn't recognize you from behind..." 

"Oh..." Heart in her throat, Watts was shocked into politeness. Palming her hair, smoothing down one dark brown lock, she flashed a small smile. "It's... uh... brown now." 

"I noticed." 

All either could do was look now, staring at each other as if they were both seeing strangers, and somehow feeling obligated to keep the impromptu conversation going, Susan took a small step forward. "What are you... doing here?" 

"Oh..." Amanda flushed, stepping back, maintaining the distance, shaking her head as if trying to pull herself from a trance. Susan glanced at her left hand. She bit her lip, taking in a shuddering breath when she found it bare. "A friend did a story on it. Peter and I kept in touch for a while. I did this show once, about one-hit wonders, and..." 

"Yeah," Susan interrupted, nodding rapidly. Duh. "You're working for MTV now." 

Amanda rubbed at her ear; a nervous fidget. "Yeah. Sorta. I'm freelance."

Susan had received a letter from her agent for that. They wanted to interview her about Peter. She had declined the invitation. 

And there was nothing else to say. 

Still, Susan couldn't bring herself to move, and she just stood there, looking at Amanda Jones.

Amanda just sighed, glancing back at the mortuary. "I just wanted to say bye to him. He was... he was... unique." Heart in her throat, Susan could only nod. Suddenly Amanda came to life, hands in her pockets. "Do you want to go lunch? I'd really like to go to lunch." 

It was said fast and it threw her. She was pretty sure she stammered, and when she glanced helplessly back to the ceremony, Amanda finally seemed to come to her senses. 

"Oh, my God. Was that disrespectful?" 

"No... I just... my kid's in there and-" 

"Your kid?" 

Susan blew out her breath, smiled gently. "Yeah. My kid." The door burst open, and the crowds came out, cameras flashing, and people talking, laughing - because Peter would have hated silence, even at his own funeral. She kept her eyes on the door, and nodded when she spotted Keith. "There she is." 

Amanda Jones looked stunned, and Susan wasn't sure if that was good or bad, as Keith held his squirming daughter in his arms, eyes on them both, before he came forward, placing Casey into her mother's arms. 

"Amanda Jones." 

"It's a name, not a title," Amanda said morosely. "And it's Amanda Jennings, now." 

"You got married," Keith said. 

"And divorced," she added, but her eyes were on her daughter. With a gentle hand, Amanda reached for the little girl, nearly touching her, before pulling back. "She's got your hair," she told Keith. Susan smiled, smoothing her fingers through the toddler's bangs, Casey kicking and gurgling in protest. 

"This is Casey." 

Amanda looked strangely affected, an odd smile quirking across her lips, as she straightened, voice clouded. "She's beautiful." 

"She's a handful," Keith corrected. 

"What's the hold up! Food's in like, twenty minutes!" 

Susan rolled her eyes, shoving Casey into the arriving Duncan's arms. "It's always about food with you." 

"Food, my dear, is the essence of life." 

"Duncan?" Amanda breathed, and Duncan looked caught, face draining color slightly when he passed wild eyes at Keith and Watts. 

"Crap," he said, shifting the weight of the baby. "I'm really not this respectable, I swear." 

Susan blinked, taking in Amanda's surprise, and looking back at Duncan. Yeah... she could see how it could be a shock if someone hadn't seen Duncan since high school. The close shaven, polished man in the suit was a far cry from the leather coated hoodlum. 

Then again, some could say the same about her. 

"Oh, my God!" Amanda breathed. "Duncan!" 

Susan grinned. "Duncan is Keith's... friend." 

"That's right," Keith said, slapping an arm around the increasingly red Duncan. "We're 'friends'." 

"Allright, allright," Duncan shifted. "It's not what it looks like," he said sheepishly to Amanda. 

"Except it is," Susan remarked dryly. 

And again, Amanda looked startled. "Wait... you and Keith are..." 

"I'm not gay," Duncan said, too fast, beet red when Keith smacked a kiss against his lips. 

"Shut up." 

Fighting a smirk, Amanda only waved him off helplessly. "I'm not saying anything. I can't say ANYTHING." 

"Wait..." Still holding Casey, Duncan looked as baffled as he had been in high school. "What does that mean?" 

It was the last thing she expected to hear from Amanda Jones. Watts' smile fell immediately, and she stared hard at Amanda, the inflection, the implicit meaning of that sentence unmistakable. When Amanda just gave her another shy smile, she shook herself.

"Do you mind watching Casey?" she asked Keith, low and fast. "Amanda wants to go to lunch." 

"Oh, sure..." 

"Let's go," Watts instructed, palm on the small of Amanda's back. 

It had been a long, long time. 

She still didn't know if she wanted to kiss or kill Amanda Jones. But she was hungry.

\-- 

"When I saw you and Keith and the baby, I just naturally assumed..." Opening the menu, Amanda was flushed. 

Amused, Susan quirked an eyebrow. "What, that we both just magically went straight?" She smirked. "It's not that easy for some of us." 

Amanda's eyes narrowed, smirk frozen before it became a smile. "It's never easy." 

Right. 

And back came the awkward silence. 

It was almost fitting, Susan supposed. This was how Amanda and Watts had started, staring across at each other in an eighties rock bar, nothing to say. 

Amanda cleared her throat, a nervous twitch she had never gotten over. "So, how did Casey, then... happen?" 

"A cup," Susan remarked dryly, before Amanda blinked, and she smiled, shaking her head. "I was with someone. We wanted a baby - we broke up before Casey was due, and so... Keith and I decided to raise her together." 

"Her mommy and daddy." 

"Not your regular nuclear family, but the next best thing." Amanda nodded, took a sip of her coffee. "How about you? Any children?" 

"Oh, no..." Amanda looked almost apologetic for that. "It's amazing really. I kept saying I would take the time, and before I knew it... there was no time." 

"Yeah..." Susan took a chunk of bread, placed it in her mouth, and chewed. She remembered being eighteen, handing this woman a diamond earring and hoping the world would catch up in time. 

And then time just passed them by. 

"So, Keith is out, then? If he and Duncan are... committed?" 

"Well..." Susan's mouth pulled into a smile, the memory amusing her despite herself. "Not so much as he came out, as he was OUTTED by his sister when she found him in bed with her boyfriend." 

"Oh my god." 

"Yeah... it was a little traumatic," she grinned, and suddenly Amanda snorted, reaching for the water. 

"Oh my God," she said again.

"Yeah, it was a long time before we were welcome back at the Nelson table," Susan admitted. "Casey kinda changed that, though." 

"She's beautiful," Amanda said. Susan refused to believe she heard anything but what was there. To think Amanda said things almost wistfully would put her in a place she fought for years to get out of. 

And still... she couldn't help her next question. "So... divorced!" 

"Yeah," Amanda mused, nodding patronizingly. "I spent a long time, trying to force myself to be with someone who I thought I should be with just because I thought it was easier." 

Her heart caught in her throat. "And it’s not." 

"The easy road is never easier," Amanda said, placing down her glass. "Just harder. And more miserable. And you end up alone. The things worth fighting for..." she nodded, lost in her thoughts. "The harder things. That's what I try to do now. What feels right. Even if everyone else think it's wrong." 

It had been years, and Susan Watts hated herself when she found herself blinking back tears, fingers balling her napkin in her first, breath unsteady and heart giving a telltale thump. 

"Got your earring," she said suddenly. "You shouldn't have given it back." Amanda studied her intently, looked away. 

"I didn't deserve it."

"While you still had it, I still had hope." 

Amanda's body stiffened, her eyes jerked and locked with hers, and fuck it all... Susan was eighteen again. Desperate and scared as hell, and hating the fact that she was just another person in love with Amanda Jones. 

"Can I take you to dinner?" 

It was straightforward, put out there. 

Susan flushed, trying hard to laugh away her emotion. "Well, we're in the middle of lunch, so... I might be a little full-" 

"Watts." Her words died in her throat the second Amanda slid fingers into her palm, smoothed over her wrist. It was an intimate touch, and it took her breath away. "I'd really like to take you to dinner." 

Falling in love with Amanda Jones had been the scariest thing she had ever done. It had left her unprotected, naked and exposed, and no matter how much older Watts got, no one else had made her feel the same way.

That feeling made her want to say no. 

"I just..." she sighed, glancing down at the white tablecloth."I don't know if I can do this again. We're not in high school anymore." 

"And I'm glad." Amanda shrugged, but looked boldly determined, because when Amanda got something in her head, she did it. Watts had learned about that trait long ago. "We weren't ready in high school. Well, now I am. I don't want to lose you again, because I think you were the only person I ever really loved." 

Watts had a thousand things working against her here. Amanda's bold determination, her brilliant smile, the shine in her eyes. The minute Amanda touched her, fingers sliding delicately over her skin, she knew it was a lost cause. She was just another minion in love with Amanda Jones. 

The difference, she wondered, stupidly wondered, was that maybe Amanda Jones was finally in love with her. 

"Okay," she breathed, pulling her arm away and cradling it into her lap, like it burnt. "Yes. You can me to dinner." 

\-- 

Susan was right, years ago. She and Amanda could never be friends. 

She had been determined to take it slow. Rediscover friendship with Amanda Jones, find out who the woman was that had been the insecure cheerleader of before. 

Instead, by nine PM that night, Amanda had pushed against her doorway and kissed the breath out of her, claiming her possession and her partnership with a whispered word and a hand undoing her belt. 

Amanda wasn't the first woman she had ever kissed and she was certainly not the last, and still Susan found herself weakened, head swimming.

"Wait," she breathed, hands on her shoulders, trying desperately to ignore her beating heart. "I really think we should go slow." 

In the moonlight, Amanda's eyes were like dark coals, fitting, Susan guessed - her stare burned. 

"It's been more than fifteen years," Amanda breathed, mouth skimming along her cheek, her jaw, sending small tiny bolts of electricity down Watts' spine. "Don't you think we've gone slow enough?" 

She couldn't fault her logic. She didn't want to. She was well into her thirties, and Watts felt like a teenager with no control when she sunk her mouth into Amanda's, fumbled for her doorknob, and stumbled inside. 

\-- 

It was almost absurdly easy, to pick up where they had left off, two scared teenagers who lived life as misfits, were now two secure, successful women who lived in Los Angeles. 

Two months after their first date, she met Amanda's mother, a good woman who voted for George Bush, eyed her with impossibly wide eyes, and stuttered through her dinner. But she tried, and for that Amanda loved her, and for that, Watts tolerated her. 

Amanda moved in a month after that, and sometimes, Watts thought it was fucking freaky, to wake up and discover Amanda Jones buried into the pillow beside her, sleeping like the dead. 

She discovered something new when Amanda moved in. Amanda snored. 

Keith was over almost every day, and because of that, so was Duncan, who still couldn't believe that the four of them had 'gone queer'. Amanda still didn't admit to being gay. She said she was simply in love with a woman, and she had gotten tired of waiting for the world to catch up.

Casey had two mommies, a daddy and a step daddy, and Watts suddenly had what she had never imagined ever having. 

A family.

\--

"It's infected." 

Bobby pins in her mouth, Susan could only roll her eyes, mumble around the pins, "It's not infected."

"It is too, infected!" 

Spitting out the bobby pins, Watts pushed away from the sink and into the nursery, shoving Amanda away to look at her daughter's tiny ears. "Sweetie, it's just a little red." 

Amanda bit the tip of her tongue, shifting her eyes from mother to baby. "Are you sure?" 

"Yes, I’m fucking sure-" 

"Don’t cuss in front of the baby!" 

Susan rolled her eyes, letting the prickle of irritation roll through her as she covered Casey's ears, and planted two kisses on Amanda's lips, punctuating each with, "Fuck. You."

"Bitch." Watts grinned, kissed her again, and moved back to the sink. 

"I had my ears pierced when I was a year old. She's gonna be fine." 

Amanda remained unconvinced, but the deed had been done, and Susan knew she thought it fitting too, that her daughter wore the infamous earrings that had been passed between the two of them like hot potatoes. 

"We have to hurry," she said, stepping away from the mirror and reaching for her jacket. "Keith's opening is at seven and he wants us there for the picture with the press - did you get her jacket?" 

"Yeah, it's right here-" Amanda looked thoughtful, adjusting a black wispy scarf around her shoulders. "Know what I think?" 

"Nope, but you're gonna tell me, aren't you?" she said, grunting as she pulled Casey into her arms, carefully moving her daughter's bangs away from her ears, letting the earrings gleam. 

Amanda shot her a glare, but continued, "It makes sense." 

"What?" she said distractedly. 

"You, me... Keith. I mean, that we're this... family." She shrugged. "It was a love triangle when this all started. Kinda fitting it ended with the three of us." 

Amanda had always been ridiculously sentimental. "You are so fucking cheesy," Watts said quickly, and then kissed her, before Amanda could huff. "What, this is destiny?" 

"I think the three of us were meant to be. In a cosmic way. Why else would we keep finding each other years after high school? I mean if this were a movie, by all logic it should have ended with you and Keith, walking into the sunset. Like Pretty in Pink."

"Do not compare my life to a Hughes film," Watts snapped. "Ours is a wonderful story. We're late-" she said, pushing Amanda toward the door. 

"Yes, but this is a different kind of wonderful," Amanda mused, letting herself get herded, grabbing the diaper bag almost by distraction. "It's... it's..." 

"Some kind of wonderful?" 

"There's a word for it," Amanda argued. 

"Well when you think of it, let me know."

FIN


End file.
